Ceremony is god
and god
is this birdless song
of feathers in a cat’s mouth.
By god, a mother
can get so high remembering,
can plummet listening
can growl for more or
sigh
dreamily in three
languages.
§
In her hemorrhaging, ceremony.
In a morphine stupor a mother
can see god
with his bucket catching each
leak and splash
as science
like a gunned down horse
limps toward
collapse.
§
A mother sees cats—
orange and white—
William James and Molly Brown.
If ever angels, these,
bearing down upon her shoulders—
their hands then
ceremony
of slowness
of breath.
§
How a mother knows force from false
like the back of her hand
but scenes from the a priori still seem god lit
and relief can flood a body under a sheet
bring a body back
from the white.
§
How frailty once meant holding
patterns in
bruised love.
How frailty’s now
this gift of spilt
laughter
in the new mother’s
nearness to
suddenly, the ceiling.
How without warning
frailty’s new, too,
built
upon real want.
§
Want is god.
A mother’s arms, bound by drug,
leave all embraces
to her eyes
which shut on tears,
open on hours
of pain, prayer.
Life.