Close Countenance

This hair falls,
falls heavy through the air,
lands nowhere, only
trailing off to meet its many ends.
I tell my child stories
that end & end,
and yet continue.

These fingers split in indecision,
end in nails, divide,
renew. My baby
cuts her baby skin
open, but it grows again,
thicker than before. In her,
my life is endless.

Will this face stay smooth?
Will these breasts remain
in place? They fall,
heavily they fall, no mouth
to feed; my child
lives on foreign food, no longer needs
these old breasts, this face.

Shoulders

Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and Earth’s foundations stay.
- A.E. Housman

We said,
let’s hold our shoulders side by side,
and build a wall that goes forever.
This latticework of arms and hands
is stronger than the bending bones,
the straining flesh, the living leather.
More than blood is coursing through
the veins we sprout. A different kind
of sinew lashes minds together.
We stared down fear and fear ended;
Our shoulders held the sky suspended.