Poems

The fault line of child’s scalp
once unmapped, exposed, incised
from nape to forehead, nubby

cross-stitch swollen pink no
French knot elegance,
the doctor dusted off blade, this mother

steeled herself against sultry sinew,
against fracas of molecules pooling
where she wants incisive decision

no clapboard dashed-together nail
and rail affair—she wants tender
at the bone, the territory charted,

each one’s scan like Saturn’s
rings, familiar.
Light passes through orbital

bone, socket of eye, the world
her child sees but doesn’t
yet know, masses outside the gate..

Nose to your cheek
I am brighter than green
fire, no words break
the surface of dewdrops.

What I can say to you
comes in silver sounds the open
hollow harbors: the rosined hum
of cricket legs as they slow,
nightingale’s Morse code lullaby.

I want to bottle your daily
travels, whiffs of skin
my child, hold them—when you are
no longer near—that first memory
like bubbles rising from still water, not yet
letters on the page..