Lullaby

I wrap you in towels. You go in the drawer.
Oh, pretty! They’d take you. They would.
They’d say I can’t have you no more.

My mamma gone nodding. Cut my own cord.
If you cry, say it’s cats in the ’hood.
Wrap up in a towel, you go in the drawer,

Safe, ’cause the worker don’t climb no fifth floor.
Fridge has to work and have food
Or they’ll say I can’t have you no more.

Hands kitty-paw pushing. Nipples all sore.
You skinny but I feed you good.
I wrap you in towels. You go in the drawer.

Can’t use the clinic I been to before—
Eyes looking like you understood—
They’ll say I can’t have you no more.

Been out sixteen days, teacher stand in my door.
You skinny. Don’t move like you should.
Zip up in a bag. You go in a drawer.
They say I can’t have you no more.

Teen Fair, In Lair

Booted, blue-nailed anarchist,
Golden stud in sharpened tongue,
Where’s the girl I raised and kissed?
Booted? Blue-nailed anarchist,
How did you ever get so pissed?
Look at all the clothes you’ve flung!
Booted, blue-nailed anarchist,
Golden stud in sharpened tongue.

Cardigan

My brother walked the barn beam first, then Orrin.
I straddled it and inched across, height-sick.
Splinters jabbed my thighs. They pulled me up
into the dangerous place you’re not supposed to go to,
with the seething, mote-filled light, the rotten floor,
(way down, through holes, the backs of stanchioned cows),
and pigeon eggs under the eaves.

It was itchy-hot. In the loft we played
Jump the holes, and Who can bounce on the rotten plank,
and I took off the coral cardigan mom had cable stitched
for weeks, all the hours the baby
wasn’t clamped on or wailing,
and I threw it like a flame on straw,
pearlescent buttons flashing.

We whooped and wheezed,
threw straw ’til we were ribbed with dust and sweat,
’til my brother tripped and slammed the barnside wall.
Wasps flew out from their mud-made pipes
and stung Orrin’s arm with three quick stings.
We got out fast the ordinary way, over the side,
clambering, hands and feet in the wall’s cut notches.

I forgot the cardigan.
Moths got it.
When I finally found it, it was
too awful to touch, live with larvae.
I held it by one cuff and shook them off,
and took it home to her.