My tongue shattered my mind sank my breath floundered the days lengthened my hips lamented the dog napped impatiently and my breasts calcified, turning to stone.
My fingers dropped things: glass, wood, sand slipped through their cracks and holes. My dreams dripped with vegetation and tigers stalked them at night, yet I would awaken dull and cardboard-boxed.
And all the while you swam in my sea
your flickers of movement – mysterious, lunar, primeval –
drenched with meaning,
an impending cataclysm
of joy? Of salty fear or drowning grief
but certainly a great wave of change approaching.
And I wished I could write you the most precious poem a mother could write her son about blue stars and how my loves were like butterflies and something about the depth of existence
But my body proved only a body
my breath ached
my mind, damp and slow,
my tongue shattered.
Painting by Mary Cassatt