by Judith Skillman

 

 

Come, but come early too much, arrive

with your toxins that turn the sky yellow

 

as our sun rises above the tree

that fell last summer on a windless night

 

from drought. Come already, I know

your face more than sound—the birds

 

dying to catch up on news, puffed up,

full of sleep, feathers catching a quick beak.

 

C’mon into this—how else say—

chronic pain, this age, the crown 

 

of grand motherhood tarnished. Lust

synthesized: old lovers, new husband,

 

new husband, old lovers. Wheeze me

out of the house mid-afternoon, blowsy

 

as laundry strung on a line, for the shower,

the chores, the stretch of muscles tight

 

with spasms and that curve where discs—

non-surgical—bulge against nerve,

 

bent anew as with the wrench

my father wielded, when he had a door

 

to fix, and later the vise on his workbench,

teeth clenched, uttering curses for lack

 

of oil, as I watched my child-self 

grow up to the lip of the wood.