can be grown out of,
can be grown into.
He talked of the 1921 World's Fair,
his tongue forgetting the
picket-fence front-teeth buried
behind the cemetery gate,
beneath the granite headstone,
so that as he "wrrrrr"ed, by the time
he "llllll"ed, it was too late: the unruly
tongue would be punished by the
moonshine in the brown bag he kept poised
just above his bouncing paper-thin brown-trousered knee.
A baby.
His baby.
He, as baby.
My heart-hole expanded and shifted
to make room for James and 1921
the world
the moon
the water
the me
Space for a universe stood
still. Breath barely moving my
hallowed frame. Waiting. My
emptiness starving, its jaw
disconnecting
acrobatically back-bending to encapsulate me with
James
1921
the world
the moon
the water
midnight foxtrots and toddles
skating on prohibitive ice sculptures
November - December - January - February - until
we lost our teeth
Don't go without ( )
The coffin disintegrated around me, me reborn with
golden locket stitched to sternum: inside
a heart thumping: then, closed and clasped, kept safe, soon over-grown with
woman's breasts, mother's breasts
breasts milking bathtub moonshine to
infant conductor of the racing,
desperate jazz band.
*
*
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