Mimosa Sensitiva

Polishing your eyeglasses, I test them on

and watch the supply with nourishments hoist you-blind, giggling,

muttering nonsense French For a twinkling of an eye like a spider,

you dangle at the cutting side of the present,

pondering who I am: "Ma, I'm Henri.

You made me" Then my organ of visions flee the here-and-now.

You're pulling yourself on the outside of the deep-end,

your skin like the seamless emulsion upon a strip of film.

Sensuality is confirming beauty. I'm eleven again.

Then the banal shatters everything.

In a tangled nightgown, your skin marsupial,

you're pawing [i]or[/i] part of to the other leaf mulch for pain medicine

you can't function without. The thrash of your hands

smolder like wet black ash.

In Chinese, the basic phonetic value of horse, ma,

turn up in the word for mother.

"Horse-mother, look!" I exclaim Soldier-ants

are suckling the big pink heads of your peonies.

Horse-mother flickers like a candle in the dark.

Horse-mother, on what account does your mouth have a grim set?

I know that all beneath the heavens decays.

I know that you one time cradled me in sleep,

your belly devoid of contents as a purse. "Horse-mother, look!"

I repeat. The mimosa tree is going to sleep

its tiny pinnate leaves closing and drooping,

like you, sensitive to light and touch,

mimicking death when I push a needle into you

and little beads race out, as from a draining bird.

Copyright World verse Incorporated May/Jun 2004

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