deepundergroundpoetry.com
Motherhood (Borderline)
'I mean to live'
- Ai Ogawa
Under a burning sun
hot as the sand we walk on;
his doe-eyes red,
dry lips thirsty,
we escaped. I knew it
had to be, and his father:
I sliced him down the middle
before we left -- a perfect parting
of his powder-white innards
slipping from their secret bag
and scattering where I left him.
Now we walk the low terrain
instead of running
along a high mountaintop ridge,
looking down.
He looks down at us now,
blue nascent ruler
whose bags I carry,
filling me inside. I know
he can always see me --
a vulture can fly anywhere.
The metal edge dividing us
won't cut through his scales
where he reaches across
my borders superseding all
confining limits.
My eyes close.
I see the razors on round wires:
the new god cutting into my arms
in long slashes; A prayer.
Its better this way, I think, the boy
will be rescued --
I am a stone around his neck
I am his thirst.
His oasis is beyond the snake trails
where snakes emerge.
I dreamed of an elaborate
mansion made of the hills,
many peopled,
adorned in all the colors
our natural dyes could create:
fringy caftans flowed around
smiling mothers;
hair in braids, eyes squinting at me --
who is she, one of us?
She must die with us to be made
tribeswoman. She must run
through our rocks as rivers
pouring red courage.
It was a mirage.
I hear a snake rustling --
he flits and hisses, or is it she;
it burrows, tunneling for cover.
We don't get a tunnel, we get
hunger; we are empty even when full
as a snake after it swallows
a meal. White hunger.
Unable to be found.
In the dark I found out why:
I want to live, but can't.
.....
- Ai Ogawa
Under a burning sun
hot as the sand we walk on;
his doe-eyes red,
dry lips thirsty,
we escaped. I knew it
had to be, and his father:
I sliced him down the middle
before we left -- a perfect parting
of his powder-white innards
slipping from their secret bag
and scattering where I left him.
Now we walk the low terrain
instead of running
along a high mountaintop ridge,
looking down.
He looks down at us now,
blue nascent ruler
whose bags I carry,
filling me inside. I know
he can always see me --
a vulture can fly anywhere.
The metal edge dividing us
won't cut through his scales
where he reaches across
my borders superseding all
confining limits.
My eyes close.
I see the razors on round wires:
the new god cutting into my arms
in long slashes; A prayer.
Its better this way, I think, the boy
will be rescued --
I am a stone around his neck
I am his thirst.
His oasis is beyond the snake trails
where snakes emerge.
I dreamed of an elaborate
mansion made of the hills,
many peopled,
adorned in all the colors
our natural dyes could create:
fringy caftans flowed around
smiling mothers;
hair in braids, eyes squinting at me --
who is she, one of us?
She must die with us to be made
tribeswoman. She must run
through our rocks as rivers
pouring red courage.
It was a mirage.
I hear a snake rustling --
he flits and hisses, or is it she;
it burrows, tunneling for cover.
We don't get a tunnel, we get
hunger; we are empty even when full
as a snake after it swallows
a meal. White hunger.
Unable to be found.
In the dark I found out why:
I want to live, but can't.
.....
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