L'INVENTION COLLECTIVE /
COLLECTIVE INVENTION
Of the marigolds, of blue vinyl suitcase, of crud all over
the stove
she'd left shiniest
two to bring light to,
yes a shelf in reach where
the little both of them could begin
could make his clean start
as fresh as Watermelon slice (oh
where was her life?)
in
him his tiny mysteries her laughing sound alight
in
his throat
oh
what was a mother to do, being her, and suddenly
it's
now?
when she went away there was this big boy who pushed him
when she went away they pushed him in the puddle
he was running home, he was running home and she wasn't there
but trying somewhere else to find out who
and where, was she?
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was
she not the neat and tidy? did she not see
her
seducers in a line and shaking their fingers and showing
"be
here, be here"
in her mind (was it?) she lay at the edge of the waters, at the
edge of the waters
was it sand there? was her
fish skin bare? all she knows is
it scratches and when the
waves collapse in inches she cannot
swim for her finny body's
half human. One day she's
plunk on the shore and her
image comes to her in in a picture as
though holding a mirror of blue paint
just
a whiff of horizon and the little waves creeping
and
folding and there it is, no way of turning
her
back
now her thighs/knees, softest whirring of
crotch
hair and all the color of how she ought to
be
but
suddenly those fins
and
the beginning of silver slippery fish-lady lying,
no
arms no woman swimming, but a face cut deep with
gills
and the sad eyes panting
and the absolute quiet of something about to arrive.
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