This Potash Dawn
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.