Auspicious hour
This night swims with ghosts
And yet it is already morning.
This auspicious hour before
the dawn
feels ripe and pregnant for
thieves and murderers
witches — the kind with warts
and I am no witch.
Thief, you are
you steal into my dreams
Night stalker
Carrying with you all your baggage
of the past and the future,
describe to me your wedding meal
how it went smoothly down the gullet
the steak, the cupcake
the flesh around my fingers
ragged
for something ugly churns
beneath the white, smooth snow
seeping through in places.
Let's throw snowballs at it
Hoping it won't come back again,
mold and mushroom
beneath new layers of plaster
painted stylishly.
There is no green growth
for months now, I've stared
at the stump.
I've had operations and grafts
faith healers and three ring circus leaders
have chanted nonsense (expensive nonsense)
over this brown, twisted place
where I used to grow new things.
I am sad and scared
that nothing new will grow again
that my soil is depleted and depleting
How long have I been
in this same terra cotta swaddling?
There is morning light coming
through black, chattering branches
A blue glow that smiles and says,
“And now you'll do it all over again.”
I'm already living all my
worst fears of motherhood
without ever actually giving birth.