Samuel 7: In Writing

 Recursive 

On my forty-fifth birthday, my credit

card gave to me:

30% off at Fox (clothes and home goods)

(calculate school shirts, sweatpants, are PJs included?)

a hand lotion from Sabon

a cake of choice at Zariffa, 

which I will eat

though I know I shouldn’t.

For the first time

in almost ten years, 

I will not

stock up on baby clothes.

For the first time 

in almost ten years

there is no baby 

strapped against my chest

or billowing my belly.

Wait and wait for the weight to lift

only to try to weigh down again–

blanket, vest, power workouts–

ways to broaden the britteling bones

make being dense

and pin my shadow in place

to be sewn down with a lost thimble. 

Of course everything circles round

and one day I’ll look back

and laugh–

or cry–

because all water incubates

in the sea and will return

to the sea

even our tears, with their salty traces

and our salt blood

stained red by iron

like the scraps of metal

in the bucket that seeps rust

darkening the water

that will replenish my rickety lemon tree

whose scrawny branches 

 struggle to bud

or even unfurl their wings

unlike the irridecent sunbird

that darts between them

searching for the sugar water

I forgot to leave in its feeder

because leftovers and decay 

are another’s nourishment

mother other udder

merging and switching

like rippes distorting the pond

that flee my finger

and then still

resolving to a face.