“Will you take me then,
pluck me like a faded flower from a branch?”
“Perhaps.”
“Will you open up my head,
cleave it as my father chops a sheep?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“And what of my wife, Maria?
Will she lay dried wreaths along this hill?”
“Perhaps.”
“Born;
and then the midwife’s hands around me;
crushing roaches at the table;
and my sister’s drowning;
my uncle beating, beating me;
and the little yellow wheel-barrow;
and cutting my first calf on the slaughterhouse floor;
and Maria’s breasts, creamy and soft,
suckling the child that never was,
nor will be.
What of them?”
“Into the earth.
Into the wet red earth.”
“Born;
and the miners’ hands, sweaty and hard;
carried on the donkey’s back;
melted in the furnace heat;
molded, turned and round;
hanging from the soldier’s belt;
gunpowder bed,
sleeping in the barrel of a gun.
What of me?”
“Into the earth.
Into the wet red earth.
With you.
In you.”