I thought I glimpsed in the bush a black eyed
child but it was a bomb. I tried to kiss her before
she detonated but I was her gun. Her teeth broke
—chandelier droplets fell to the soil between us, yellow
pearls detonating under my touch. I ached to save
us both, so I gauzed her mouth under the applause
of rain but the gauze was blood. I wrapped blood
in blood. Child, I whispered, they’ve taken the light…
I was a mother once...There are bees in the milk...
I could not pick a way to say all I’d seen:
Our willows stuffed with barbed wire, gunpowder
dressed as wheat in sunlight, endless gallons of neon
waste masqueraded as ocean and the women
who bathed there daily till their wombs bloomed
a wrong glow. They’ve taken the candlelight
Jesus read by, buried a blade in the wax. I was
a mother once, I knew how to get a swelling howl to
drink. But now there are bees in the milk. I drank
because I believed the cow. I drank until my lips were
riddled with needles. Even love has a hidden knife.