A Woman Clothed in Words Read Free

Some ear’s blessing
    Speaks in the grove at night.
    •
    Night is over my suckling my serpent child
    Hang on my breast once more. This percipient one
    Who has refused all syruped rusks, Pablum and cow’s milk
    Preferring the bitter truth of malnutrition
    To all false sweetness.
    •
    Who with erupting fangs
    Pierced the blue nipple of piety
    Until the blood flew.

Theo’s Mother
    Wizened and black I rocked and thought – another age
    Past, and all our heroes over. Gone are they; hung down
    Like withered creepers purple and yellow still.
    I heard – I think – the voice of a hot tired woman
    With dust on her skirts calling through the window;
    Telling me what doors the mind has. Open them all:
    All doors: all windows until the draught blows
    A whirlwind in the flood.
    •
    This Sister had old feet in black shoes. She was the one
    The only one, saw woman as the mother of daughters.
    When I was baptised she called me Anna – mother of one daughter.
    Arm in arm we walked; between us small black Theo
    Sulky in white – we meant to bind her God’s.
    •
    Oh God I know I shouldn’t have brought her up to learning
    Last week she was married in town with cakes and carpets,
    White forks and tripping dainty girls in heels.
    Mother of humanity! I said – Theo I’ll bless you
    Set a wand in your hand – What did she do?
    She lifted up that hand and laughed behind it
    (I heard her). Sniggered like a wild girl at Sister’s big black feet.
    •
    Well, what can a mother do?
    I’m far too old to curse her.

Climacteric
    Curled within the coiled leaf the thin gallworm
    Like a priest in his hole; while glorious without
    The towered house: breasts of the crinolined girl
    Innocent and perfect. The cornices of dented plaster trace
    The lineaments of her brown impassive face.
    •
    All hot pavements are walked by such young women
    With curved spiked feet and inward earholes plugged.
    While at their shoulder panting the insistent breath
    Of persistent pursuing humanity: all
    That is within forgotten as the gall.
    •
    Yet hidden deep the worm – priest of an alien cult
    Demanding sacrifice and sustenance. Thin folded bread
    Stuffed under doors. And through a pipeline of grey glass
    Like blood the pulsing wine must pass.
    •
    But let the face pock and crumple: the thorn-foot thump:
    The wasp-worm turns within the belted waist.
    Like chafer or cherub fourwinged he flies
    To her face and through her opened eyes.
    •
    He rubs his thin hands together chanting and singing
    Highmass pontifical in the whole world’s sight,
    While bowing the unaccustomed congregation
    Blinks in the sun’s blaze; in the candle’s light.

Designing
    Within the bud the bear,
    And not the woolly-caterpil lar kind either.
    A provident thought of cells: square cells like
    beeswax lithographs.
    I see this pattern printed on fruits and trees:
    What use is it to them? But if I were a bee I’d want it
    For my little beegrub to lie down in.
    The dented crust that rinds a world scuffed up
    With a come and a coming. Histories obey the foot that spurns
    The spiral force of life.
    A whorl, a cell, an imprint, a design
    Upon the eternal will.

Lion in the Salt Mine
    (In the winter who can know
    Which is salt and which is snow?)
    •
    Bank where the swallows come to nest in the cliffy holes
    Not forgotten after four years away,
    And the garter snakes coiling their slow way in and out
    Stealing the swallow’s eggs.
    •
    Dust on the prairie road printed with lion’s toes
    And crossed with a line or two of rusted blood
    Limp lifted paw and rolled in the dust:
    Run over by that blasted truck last night.

The Pit
    It’s not enough that ivy cracks my tomb?
    Or leaves blow in the cracks? Bury me shallow
    Without a box or sheet. Spade up a trench
    And fling me face downwards in the seeping earth.
    Thin roots must split my limbs to splintered threads,
    Roots of a tree whose flowers are flakes of fire
    Until they fall and wither on the grass
    To brownish scabs. I have a