Polishing your eyeglasses, I try them on
and watch the nurses hoist you—blind, giggling,
muttering nonsense French. For a moment, like a spider,
you dangle at the edge of the present,
pondering who I am: "Ma, I'm Henri.
You made me." Then my eyes flee the here-and-now.
You're pulling yourself out of the deep end,
your skin like the seamless emulsion on a strip of film.
Sensuality is confirming beauty. I'm eleven again.
Then the banal shatters everything.
In a tangled nightgown, your skin marsupial,
you're pawing through leaf mulch for pain medicine
you can't function without. The thrash of your hands
smolders like wet black ash.
In Chinese, the basic phonetic value of horse, ma,
turns up in the word for mother.
"Horse-mother, look!" I cry. Soldier-ants
are suckling on the big pink heads of your peonies.
Horse-mother flickers like a candle in the dark.
Horse-mother, why does your mouth have a grim set?
I know that all beneath the sky decays.
I know that you once cradled me in sleep,
your belly empty as a purse. "Horse-mother, look!"
I repeat. The mimosa tree is going to sleep,
its tiny pinnate leaves closing and drooping,
like you, sensitive to light and touch,
mimicking death when I push a needle into you
and bright beads run out, as from a draining bird
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