Mother

Ash falls on the roof

of my house.



I have cursed you enough

in the lines of my poems

& between them,

in the silences which fall

like ash-flakes

on the watertank

from a smog-bound sky.



I have cursed you

because I remember

the smell of Joy

on a sealskin coat

& because I feel

more abandoned than a baby seal

on an ice floe red

with it's mother's blood.



I have cursed you

as I walked & prayed

on a concrete terrace

high above the street

because whatever I pulled down

with my bruised hand

from the bruising sky,

whatever lovely plum

came to my mouth

you envied

& spat out.



Because you saw me in your image,

because you favored me,

you punished me.



It was only a form of you

my poems were seeking.

Neither of us knew.



For years

we lived together in a single skin.



We shared fur coats.

We hated each other

as the soul hates the body

for being weak,

as the mind hates the stomach

for needing food,

as one lover hates the other.



I kicked

in the pouch of your theories

like a baby kangaroo.



I believed you

on Marx, on Darwin,

on Tolstoy & Shaw.

I said I loved Pushkin

(you loved him).

I vowed Monet

was better than Bosch.



Who cared?



I would have said nonsense

to please you

& frequently did.



This took the form,

of course,

of fighting you.



We fought so gorgeously!



We fought like one boxer

& his punching bag.

We fought like mismatched twins.

We fought like the secret sharer

& his shade.



Now we're apart.

Time doesn't heal

the baby to the womb.

Separateness is real

& keeps on growing.



One by one the mothers

dropp away,

the lovers leave,

the babies outgrow clothes.



Some get insomnia -

the poet's disease -

& sit up nights

nursing

at the nipples

of their pens.



I have made hot milk

& kissed you where you are.

I have cursed my curses.

I have cleared the air.

& now I sit here writing,

breathing you.