Mother Poetry
Mother Winter
I am willing to be born
with only half a face.
The fact that my limbs would be
unfinished matters little now;
I need to escape
this clamp-jaw
I will be unformed
if necessary
I would crawl
with the nubs that should be arms
I would be ugly
and hobble on wooden legs.
I would have no name.
Nameless and faceless,
all distorted,
I could pose for pictures,
be a side-show freak.
For I am in prison
and the bars are blood vessels.
I'm trapped in the belly
of a throbbing purple animal
heaving.
Curled tight like a testicle,
I am miles and miles of furrow
but have no way to grow.
Mother,
my lungs are filled with fluid.
Departure
Now the separation,
the cutting of cord
and leaking of fluid,
a writhing of cord-tail
and I am gone from you.
I crawl out,
reaching with my fleshy hands,
mud-crawler,
out of the tight-fitting glove,
five-fingered grip pried open.
And the waters spill forth.
The flesh vessel,
sac knit with thick purple thread,
uteral totem crawling from the place
of chaos
empty of its fill.
Now a shed skin,
warm coat of membrane,
winter thick.
I think I am born.
A bird beats its wings in my chest,
pelican with its bloody feathers.
Richard Smyth
volume 2, issue 2
SN 201
