How many of us are raised by puppeteers?

How many by racketeers

By cock a doodle dee doo

And how many by shampoo-

(dealers?)

Bet your head is spinning:

So your parents didn’t want you to marry a Jewish boy

Go to Alma Mater or die

While learning how to drive?

You were raised by the narcotics

Of sophomoric giddiness:

See? – oh! – you,

Trying to walk on white, velvet,

Careless columns. How laughable

You looked to them,

And how lovely.

When you talked. How many thought it was wonderful,

Just wonderful and not pedagogical:

To hold, to be held: while talking?

Even when they resented you, and they did,

They picked up the heavy human pouch,

Carried it up three flights of stairs to the apartment,

The small head trusting their shoulders,

The two bodies abruptly thankful.

            We thought the foundations were solid.

But the universe rests on a shaking fountain.

It sprinkles and makes a mess.

Now that you are a parent,

Help yourself to a mess of vague sentiment,

Richly flawed, sweet as sin. 

Boston, April 15

Boston, April 15

Ideeli.com is a having a counter-terrorism sale.

The broad aqua stripes on the Seattle Smocked Dress

Displace Copley Square Blood Patterns as good as needlework.

Thus also at Whole Foods pancake mix went cheap

The night after the Newtown, Connecticut, children were shot.

I bought two boxes in self-defense.

No, really, I wanted to wrap my son

In flour tulle, airy silk

Of flapjacks and hotcakes and other cute mysteries

That English offers when welcoming.

I hid Nathan under the pancake of immigrant-insured history.

But he peeked out and said: Mama! Buy all those

Blasphemous bunches of peonies, too!

Though the ruddy flower faces reminded —

What else could I do? Isn’t life, investment in life,

The reverse of what terrorists and sociopaths desire?

What but to think of people exactly like us,

Who ran a marathon in the morning and died in the afternoon

When Anonymous swept away their shelves

Of pancake mixes, flower seeds, and parcels with summer dresses

Everlasting?

Youniverse

Youniverse

               

what i want is Your cries to awaken me.

at seven, our place speaks various Youish.

outside, seagulls go You! is that You!?

and so yes: sleepy eyes, and Yougurt 

on its way out slurping youuuuu, long and loud.

aye! what’s better than to be devoured!

…You contracted tap water into a ball!

into a bull!

spraying spinning tails all over the bathroom!

i wash Your hands after breakfast. Ewww!

mew the pipes.  You’re crying, i’ve got EnnYouI,

but it’s cured by the warm towel of Your water.

pj pants have been Youified into coat tails,

moving targets for kittens,

flower pots, transfigured: graves on the rug;

i'm mad but i’m twOOOOOO! too!

then, nothing: hi nanny; o homelessness,

i’m kicked out into spring, no one notices

all i’m wearing is suit heels papers perfume.

but i've got the Youniverse wrapped around my neck,

and it’s warm, and it’s purring

while i hand out goodmornings to the resident yous.

In Russian again... (number 14 of 100)

Прислушиваешься в семь утра 

Проснулся?

И вот - маленькие резкие крики

(Бедный не может сам даже встать

Детство как инвалидство)

                        Громче

(Самоутверждается?)
(Животик снова?)

                                                            Громче 

(Да ладно не беги так мама

Просто у меня пока нет языка)

(Мама я потом всё тебе расскажу   

Как Пруст)

                       В комнате
Тишайшее дыхание на свете

Пух разметавшийся по подушке

Плюшевый лосик сверху  Одна лапа во рту

А крики

Сумасшедшей чайки

За окном

stroller mom

bolted to the ground as she walks.

disciplines the handle with both hands.

exoskeleton lustrous. front legs convert to brakes.

around her cars and phones

scamper as they please                       

       instant like mice.

she is                                       an ancient inkjet cartridge,  

an astronaut revolving in a cage.

                        eyes metal with attention.       lips pregnant with corrections.

but her cooing –

lips pregnant with corrections.

flying cooing –

            lips always pregnant.

the cooing that flies forward to the baby:

                                                just lightly strapped to the tin, grating air?

then what?

then for a second you and I surrender

and autumn street translates into a river

and bubbles of a voice float deeply up

meanwhile she sight unseen

L-E-A-P-S

up!

and with shrewd starving eyes

rips coins and nails out of the sky

so many coins

so many nails

she hides them in her arms

In Russian

                                                Е.Г.

Материнство состоит из «пытаюсь» и «не»

В графу «не» сразу заносим твой первый снег

как это может быть –

твоего Луи Армстронга (первые пятьсот раз) –

и нежность что тянет-потянет из «не»

В медитации  твоего полу-лица

в мою мамскую полу-прыть

вместо алефа разгляжу даже не аз а «а»

да и то лишь – чтоб научить

Но морскую раковину силится тронуть  трава

хоть ночь                 прослушивается        насквозь

да и ночь хлопнет дверью нет-нет и коснётся едва

рамы оконной белой как никогда

максимум травы – отраженье травы

максимум ночи – твоя и чуть-чуть моя

но краска на раме линяет     сладко ей от тепла            

В этом давно в печи обожённом «пытаюсь»

живут муравьи

на кухне спиралью розовой борщ и все звуки мои

крутится-вертится-хочет-ам-ам ня-ня

а потом можно немножечко отдохнуть

За забором  живуть

мечтательные поросёнок и мама-свинья

как это может иногда быть

You, Who Was I

Arms couldn’t hold. Eyes couldn’t hold.

Memories? There were none.

The surgeon dressed me for Halloween:

flour sack, doilies, shower cap.

You, he whispered in my ear, dear, you are not well.

Your baby, not well. But I wrapped his whole life,

I said. He was water, I was a well.

For days I pushed around a bell.

He repeated the part about baby, oh dear not well.

So I said: Cut! So he said: Cut!

Then I said: Wait! We didn’t have a date!

And he said: I’ll be careful! I know which parts!

And I said: cut him out, but will he be yours?

                                          

He didn’t think that was funny. Gave me a fan,

and we waltzed. A strange body commingled,

parts scuttled, and cackled, and jingled;

some, like family in an exam room, ended up by a curtain,

others, in the parallel world, where the surgical team

giggled re: football. This was so routine.

In five minutes, I was handed a person.

Unfathomable, cinnamon-hued, blue-

eyed, huge for his age. Specific and true.

Eyes couldn’t hold. What did I think I knew?

Soft burning heat of a world passing through.

We’ll have so much fun, I said to you.

Most awe commands humble

Crouching beside, thorough

Observation; may pounce without notice.

In most cases, ends without one too.

This one lets you take it in your lap,

Kicking: Where’s the doggie

I was holding!?   Lets your lips

Smell its warm freshly baked hair,

Curly and flying in your face.

You forget where the other organs

Even are.

Remember how you let reverence

Into your own belly? Wasn’t that hilarious?

The innermost: a negotiable resource,

A social space, where, for example, you held a dance –

As it turned out – one more time…

So now your belly now thank God alone,

But here is a subtle thin painful vacancy,

And here is the throne,

The warm outer hollow

Where the prince –

Might sit.

O what sighs, when you fill this new space.

More peaceful than post-coital bliss,

Because it’s not post-. You belong, the body whispers!

Against the simple fact that the source

Of all this awe is now ever more moveable,

And as time goes along, will not belong

For much longer – to you – to anyone else;

Against more such thoughts, and most odds.

Inner Child

Funny man,

not so tiny anymore,

dancing by the ribcage,

feet rapping my hips,

is this what you want – to stretch

into my limbs?

You’d dance then more fully:

mom would be your big puppet.

You’d squash me, then mold me

in your image.

Would I want you to wiggle out?

But at least then I’d know

what you are doing, darling,

rather than lie in the liquid, knocking

darkness, half-guessing

what a circus it is to be Mother,

what roles we will play for each other:

when the cord is cut, such battles are fought,

such cheap comedies played—then, how soon the night!

When we are separate people,

we will think this duet had been simple:

me, just a skirt with a flounce,

curling and uncurling around

your sleeping and breathing dances.

In Russian

Хорошо забытое детство просыпается

внутри неё. Живёт каких-нибудь девять месяцев,

но всё явственней чувствует себя забытым

на ярмарке или в магазине.

И снится ей беспощадно, и снится,

пока не становится

дрожащей в руке синицей.

А пока ему бы её ударить - прыгнуть

в себя. Узнать, почему небо ноет ,

зачем пол хочет вытолкнуть,

если любит.  Где путь

к приглушённому звуку, 

что играет со светом в прятки? Зачем

кожей чуешь – вот, жизнь устала,

но любит и любит тебя

и поэтому пытается выпихнуть?

И как же ты будешь жить один

и думать об этом следующие лет восемьдесят,

когда придётся тщательно

забывать себя самозабвенно

на ярмарке или в магазине?

the mom behind the stroller

       bolted to the ground as she walks
     disciplines the handle with both hands

 her voice strapped lightly to aluminum air

   a fixity both moot and finalized

cars / phones / coats scamper as they please

instant like mice

                                                                        she is time-worn

            skull compressed by attention                     lips pregnant with corrections

watch her sashay    away

                                                                       a furtive inkjet cartridge

                                                                                   an astronaut revolving in a cage

                                and L-E-A-P! 

                                                                   (with baby tied)

                                                                                 her shrewd and famished eyes

 stealing steel nuggets from from the sky

                                  

she hides them in her arms

In Russian

чижик пыжик где ты был

до того как был

откуда                  впрыгнул

как это                   из меня

на УЗИ смешно-престрашном был светло горящий

не желавший быть «тобой»

а потом                

в недолгих руках моих –  голубая курточка  – кудри – что это?

ты был                                 уже                        маленький

   нормальная жизнь: да, да, купила я тебя в магазине

и тело мое населено паразитами крылатами  генами бородатыми

подсчитано и подписано

ну а с другой стороны
мастер, полный силы, свил твои тугие жилы и млат, и сват, и святой Блэйк

но если и то неправда
и это

то 

боже мой 
чижик мой

Thursday Market

The only mountain in this whole region:

the pregnant mama at a farmer’s market.

Her veiny vines touch the past and future.

She, Lilith, scoffs at the small, clean tables,

the short-lived peaches, the swollen squashes.

She revels in her laughing stature;

to hell with pale plums, and stressed-out peaches.

The fruitless eggplants rise up—but quiver.

Inane Chicago, you are Atlantis.

Skyscrapers, like so many corn cobs,

collapse and crack by her mammoth toes.

She drinks the lake and naps in the prairie.

The pregnant mama is just pretending.

She wears a planet, and feels its pulling,

its almost-falling, its fruit, so different

from sterile apples grown for urban hippies.

The fruit is born, but to be birthed yet;

the human tree does not know its children.

The pregnant mama is a child, spellbound,

and walks through ages, through distant orchards,

and climbs the world’s tree for a simple cherry,

and feels it ripen into a globe.

Shelled

Adults play at being each other,

prepare elaborate camouflage.

“Look! I’m wearing your face!”

But to play that sport with you, 

who knew the taste of my anxiety,

heard my machinery louder than me?

Small You?

And without the games? I didn’t know how.

The furrowed sovereignty of your face.

The needles that pricked you your whole one-week life.

Your separateness: a tsunami. 

No masks were left – the only face before me was yours.

And your otherness was opaque.

Once a fish in my belly, a giddy pet

who did laps, you now howled. 

Sorrow? Loneliness? Soreness?

Why didn't you come with a radar?

So I looked at you through a tunnel:

breast pump tubing, rolled blankie, a binkie

crooked and pipe-like in your mouth.

You wailed, I carried you, hunted

for you, four a.m., and I circled,

and you wailed, miles away from my body,

a warm paperweight, you doubted, I faked it,

and we paced, and we waited

for each other to land,

till I walked into stupor;

you, into separate sleep.

Rocking Chair

Where a mortal mom

feeds baby-baby.

Where she rushes

past charred snow,

numb coat,

towards cherries.

Where droplets drop.

Where each swallow

draws a circle

‘round the air that does not hear.

So she also doesn’t fear.

Where the quick quick, take cover,

dear reader.

Where

she’d bought some tix

to traverse the Styx,

but plans

to exit at the secret stop

the one past the terminal.

If

she doesn’t miss the boat.

Gestures

Unbuttoning a man’s shirt,

your hands grow girly, careful. A methodical –

metaphysical? – awe for what’s on the other side.

Your fingers unfurl the fabric, puppeteer-like,

slow-dance with the last button. Dinner was fine,

you got straight A’s in beef, and now it’s time

for delicious blue air that flakes, filters in

to greet the tough panorama of someone’s chest.

  

Buttoning a one-year-old’s shirt for the night,

you know there’s no time, none left in the world.

So it must be a cowboy shirt. Tuck it in-

to small jeans. There’s a man: watch him grin;

were you grinning yourself? With such panic you love

whatever temporal overlap you two will have.

What grins may come…

How do gestures birth men? And such solid ones,

golden-hued, singing softly in the crib.

No time, risking with every split

decision to not get it right.

You stumble into the bedroom, to the only person awake

at this hour, kiss him with an open mouth, into an open time.

Outside, every phantom of a wobbling night

is blue, every bit of it dyed.

Heartbeat

To hear our baby,

we go to a room plastered with pictures

of women’s internal organs.

They look like a color-coded salad:

a seedless red uterus sidled up to curly parsley,

but the parsley ran away with the vagina.

Then the doctor came out from behind a giant Asian cabbage

and started the fetal heart monitor.

To see our baby,

we consult a bearded wizard.

The ultrasound is a box

powered by tiny bearded men

who make little boys beat down on glass anvils

with tiny glass hammers

in order to take pictures.

And when our baby is born,

immaculate specialists

at Providence Hospital

will teach us how to kiss him.

The unborn child lives in the world.

The closer we get

to him, the less real it seems:

that a smallness shines

in the dark,

that it – he – feels and hears

us.

That in a couple of years

he will tell us

how he feels

about all this.

During Baby After

1

During Baby After

As the hermit crab grows in size, it has to find

a larger shell and abandon the previous one.

—Wikipedia

The baby’s asleep,

no longer lit

by her, but by a night light

in the shape of a turtle.

In a separate world,

the turtle projects stars.

Does the child know she loves him?

Does she know she loves him?

A ray stretches lazily, bluely,

across the dresser.

A starved star, strayed.

She nods in rhythm,

holding out for our heartbeat,

like in the labor unit.

May she forget, fog up

our animal mind.

You made a baby, she mutely says.

you should be pleased,

a vast part of you lost.