das kind isst und küsst sein geist

martha stands in the west side in the black morning

and says to her children that they are better. you are better, maria,

you were born before justin and after helen, though you taught

them both how to float in the community pool. you have private experiences and they’re in those back-lit reams, that have by justice been conferred on my children and on the children of other women like me. but maria

picks her nose in the afterschool program and parts

her legs to reveal leopard flash cotton nook, her teacher fondles

his guitar and says callously girl zip it, zip zip it or i’ll send you back.

martha folds her purse between her knees and my children are better, she says to nobody. they have feelings that are like nobody's, i call them down 

into the basement and give them gatorades, i cradle their gatorades

and ask them to please never think i am old, or to love, or be anything, and again to not think i am old. i send them upstairs and they go to wisconsin with college

boyfriends, they tan. they look at this and look at that when i tell them to. i gather them in the black western and the lonely idea that i am real--

they drive into depth of field and strike rocks on the sides of cars not theirs and if i could get them back in me i would-- if nobody understands the want.

but that you would read instead, placing useful

panels against other panels of wood, and that you would be so elegant and choose when to be gentle, though gentle you are not you are not the dove. but that you would speak to me through others

and to them through my openings. i guess who cares

cities gather into themselves just as i have feebly since leaving,

they erect centers they go on to fill with bulbs and then

congratulate themselves. this beam upholds what holds

what paint paints things white.