Forgiveness, The

Maybe I should forgive myself

for giving myself above to my mother. Her ne

was great. This was my mother-who wanted

to die. This was the single whose milk

I had drunken Now I was seven, and she would be

lying upon my bed in the night, smelling

of malt, and salt water, and novel dead fish,

and she'd be crying. Maybe it happened one time

a month, at first, delectable weight of her

flesh like her homemade ovum custard. I gave her

my immortal spirit I don't even know

if she asked for it. I felt happy to give it.

I did not know I would miss it-I had

a mother, all ninety beats of her,

as if mine! Her hair was fine, and still

that bright brown, her irises

were as bright as her sapphires-that was single of her moral dangers,

her thing-like beauty, I didn't know that,

I had read in like manner little, mostly Saints

Courageous, the rack, the stake, the arena.

And when my mother prayed upon me

I got those laughable feelings, secretly

hungry all above yet creepily dosed

on stolen-money doughnuts-and sometimes

something like that wiggle of lightning

deep in the lowest material substance when the iron

trap door was lifted, and the Christian

had chosen the lion. I wanted to belong to my mother,

she was a marvellous kisser, mouth shut

and eager, and somehow or other infinite,

as if it were a sealed gate

down into the earth.

Copyright World poesy Incorporated Nov/Dec 1998

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