They are staying in for the weekend

joyful

the baby in the woman’s belly

floating

the stylist braiding her hair

casually

the heiress handing her a cup of coffee

respectfully

It is just a small party of friends on this humid August night

intimate, really.

Someone walks by the open bedroom door

unrecognized

but’s it’s okay, this is an  open house after all

and friends do have other friends.

Suddenly there are more,

three women

unrecognized

who pronounce

“Come with us.”

Ring around the rosy

We scoop you up fistful by fistful

spread you evenly among the gardenias and the roses

as we coat your garden with the film of you.

A pocketful of posies

You are now the sooty remains

gathered from the bottom of a fireplace

after a long winter’s night

Ashes, ashes

This is all that’s left,

these hands sifting through

the sand of you,

a requiem.

We all fall down

she squirms and daintily moves the angle of her legs from time to time

as intermittent sighs drift their way across this distance.

he waits in the sidelines of her vision as evening lumbers clubfooted towards moon time.

she longs for his advance

for his foot to turn an inch, any indication suggesting interest.

there are distractions:

the symphonies play

the stereos jive

and outside

the wind and the trees

the lightening

the hail

stomp through the balcony and announce their selves.

he could be fishing in Wisconsin for all she knows,

dreaming of walleye an arm’s length or better,

yet every once in awhile her right side is bathed by his pensive gazing

as he watches her

as he just watches her.

In this way I held you and spoke to you

holding long conversations

my arms caressing my basketball sized stomach

as I told you everything I was doing every day.

You were for that interval detained,

floating dreamlike within your aquarium globe.

I would speak to you whenever the outside volume

became too distracting—-

when the threat of impending violence tensed the surrounding air.

He would be ranting about something

and so I would sit on the edge of the bed and sing to you,

“Don’t you listen to him; mommy loves you”—

my arms around the you inside of me—

placing my palms just where I thought your budding ears might be,

to keep you, I hoped, from hearing his voice.

Once, before you were born

I ran from him down the street

and again my arms desperately held you.

This time they formed a kind of lift, a restraint

against the jostling of juices as I held my bountiful belly

like a young boy who has just kidnapped a prized ripe watermelon from the neighbor’s yard.

Before you were born,

as your first endocrinological  seas were forming,

establishing their own recipe transmuted from his ocean and mine,

I did not know then you would memorize those voices,

that you would carry them with you,

an imprint left

before you were born.