10.28.08

My daughter has succumbed

for now

but not without tearing this home

  apart,

taking my mind and pushing it

 full against my skull,

the ache of constraint.

Scream with all within you,

so it begins again.

"Are you not exhausted?"

I am dead

tired.

I hide behind speakers covering

my ears, to subvert reality,

to fill my head

that it may

  unravel.

Domesticity demands

exhausted lashings

to pierce my peace.

All has become a knot of entanglement.

And you, my wife, trapped and subjected with

me.

It is you

  and me

that have born this agonizing joy,

this relentless life.

You framed yourself against my fetal curl -

  the flannel sheets our shared womb.

We were together again,

laying silently

a hushed comfort

while peace pulsed in

our own ways

beneath skin.

Across my body came your hand

interlocked and interlocking

my own.

That too was a knot,

like the way years add

rings to a Maple

and seasons form fibrous callouses

upon those trees.

There is much beneath.

Now  silence

except distant fan

and small motor.

The refrigerator hums.

And the rocking chair creaks its

protest to pressure and weight.

There you sit with

my daughter - 

sucking from you, satiating soothe

timeless calm.

We are bound - hand in hand,

mouth to breast,

mind to heart.

Pressed one upon another with

the irritation of pleasure.