The Damaged Child

The hole in your head was not intended
Though I saw it coming like a Wyoming afternoon
ravishing the valley with a cumulus bruise.

Where should I have been looking?
The swings were still, not creaking.
The slide yet wet with morning pus.

You are my son.
I saw that clearly for the first time today.
Your wound unfurling as a dahlia

explodes at dawn,
as the cut you made in me expands
even now, even as you sleep

against my collarbone.
My wound that lingers
these years later

in the lightning-dry
valley of my gut.
I am in love with you.

Ornamental Pear

there is the particular palette of April's end
pear-green unfurling slow and now
wound of hyacinth patched here
and there pubic grasses coaxed
as branches, heavy umbilical blush
endure these days, then gone,
a snow of vessels burst

The Meadowland Review Winter 2011

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