<div class="line">I think about how you stayed up nights, Mother,</div>
<div class="line">drinking coffee at your sewing machine.</div>
<div class="line">The time you never went to bed</div>
<div class="line">finishing my Isadora Duncan costume—</div>
<div class="line">diaphanous number cut from a swell of black crepe</div>
<div class="line">for the mad-grief dance after her children accidentally drowned.</div>
<div class="line">Remember waking to find the garment realized—</div>
<div class="line">dark offering you draped across the ironing board,</div>
<div class="line">the fastidiously stitched seams that stroked</div>
<div class="line">my just-coming curves so I’d be beautiful,</div>
<div class="line">drunk in the lights of my junior high stage,</div>
<div class="line">and you out there in the hushed cool of your reserved seat,</div>
<div class="line">hands folded, resting now, the little bobbin of your heart</div>
<div class="line">spinning inside its quiet nook while you watched me</div>
<div class="line">do the hard, privileged work of feeling for both of us.</div>


From the Women’s Restroom

Camouflage

The Sacrifice

<div class="line">Well, who hasn’t dreamt</div>
<div class="line">of busting the barn door</div>
<div class="line">down, shoving</div>
<div class="line">the iron gate wide,</div>
<div class="line">dust kicking up faces</div>
<div class="line">of whatever beast</div>
<div class="line">presumed itself ruler</div>
<div class="line">of you, decider</div>
<div class="line">with a rope and knife,</div>
<div class="line">buzz saw gleaming</div>
<div class="line">sharp and round</div>
<div class="line">in the eye of its killing hand.</div>
<div class="line">It’s easy to forget</div>
<div class="line">the suffering of others</div>
<div class="line">when the meat’s so juicy</div>
<div class="line">and fresh, which</div>
<div class="line">I’m sure wasn’t</div>
<div class="line">my father’s intention</div>
<div class="line">when he stuck his fork</div>
<div class="line">in our plates without asking,</div>
<div class="line">his fist</div>
<div class="line">through my bathroom door</div>
<div class="line">when, disgusted, I fled</div>
<div class="line">the table of family feasting.</div>
<div class="line2">Blood should beat free</div>
<div class="line">and warm through</div>
<div class="line">the feet of creatures</div>
<div class="line">clacking down streets</div>
<div class="line">of their sunnier mornings,</div>
<div class="line">something green</div>
<div class="line">and granular still sweet</div>
<div class="line">in their cuspated</div>
<div class="line">teeth—a cool drink lapped</div>
<div class="line">from faucets along</div>
<div class="line">the lushest way. How</div>
<div class="line">isn’t breath a gift</div>
<div class="line">we’re born to relish?</div>
<div class="line">And at night, where</div>
<div class="line">a slow drift of stars</div>
<div class="line">drizzles honey for children</div>
<div class="line">to doze to, how</div>
<div class="line">about the open dream</div>
<div class="line">of witchery enough</div>
<div class="line">for leaping moons</div>
<div class="line">clean over—</div>
<div class="line">away from death—</div>
<div class="line">just as fast and far</div>
<div class="line">as your slender legs can.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/BittingCows.mp3"></audio></figure>

Go Out and Listen to the Frogs

Poets Respond

Even the Nails in the Sheetrock Missed Her

Cows Escape Slaughterhouse, Stampede Through California Neighborhood

<p style="text-align: justify;">And the only mail that comes is from people wanting money, I look out the window at two pink blooms—wild lilies—their long, alien stems out of nowhere touched down on an ivy bank I’m told rats nest in when you don’t trim it. If only to think garlands, perfumed thoughts about us—the wrestled years, rocky soil and thriving anyway, like these two mulish plants; every day the marriage opening its eyes, sitting up to take another sip of air. And noting each bud’s meaty cup, rosy star-shaped sphincter, how the flesh mirrors mine where he still hunkers down to kiss each glazed petal, the snail trail of licks—groundswell when he takes the whole warm fruit inside—nibbling slowly, gently, I’m scared there won’t be enough, the way I’m scared now, only the feeling switched, ingrown, such a vicious creature, would rather gnaw its own tail than go without a meal. There it sits, sucking its teeth, grubbing the ivy for one fat crumb. Nose to the mud, an enemy of day, the unbid brightness bursting around. Have you heard about the girl, fed her spite when faced with cutbacks? How the green leaves quivered:<br />
<em>there’ll never be enough<br />
there’ll never be enough</em></p>


Tracking the Soybean Assassin

12:32 p.m.

When He Doesn’t Get the Job

<div align="justify">She leads me down a corridor—an older woman in green pajamas, away from the slick tile and smart upholstery of the waiting area, towards the &#8220;fully licensed operating room&#8221; hiding on the other side. I&#8217;ve been longing to see it, the same way when I was a young girl I&#8217;d watch <em>Whatever Happened To Baby Jane</em> even though I wasn&#8217;t supposed to, fascinated by the freakish characters and their secret lives. We step into a changing room with lockers and a gurney. She hands me booties, a shower cap, and a paper gown, asks me if I&#8217;m warm enough, and then leaves so I can change. I strip to my waist and wrap the flimsy tunic around my middle, pissed I have to expose so much when it&#8217;s just my fucking nose that needs fixing. This pre-cancer shit I&#8217;m told only a plastic surgeon can handle, due to the delicate angle on the bridge of my nose. She knocks, and I follow her down another hall, another set of doors that open into a much larger room with hospital beds and monitors lined up on one side. I flash on the last time I was in a hospital: seven and a half months ago when my baby girl was born, when I spent a night and a day in labor and delivery, working every ounce of me to push a bright ball through the narrow slit between my legs, as if her exit could ever keep away the disease, the terminal nature of loving, whose cells would only multiply over time and eventually divide us, like walls, without our even knowing it was happening.</div>


Spin

Poem Written in the Sixth Month of My Wife’s Illness

Labor and Delivery

<p style="padding-left: 0px;">Silence took my tongue when my brother went<br />
away, now words are skittery rabbits: soft,<br />
furry lumps huddled in my throat’s dry den.<br />
I wait for him at breakfast where the clock<br />
clicks its mean teeth, wait for him to tease me,<br />
please Lord, anything, but his empty chair<br />
staring back: a hard, narrow beast. Scary<br />
to know one hundred sixteen children there<br />
and then not. Scary the ambulances,<br />
lights that would not end, turning the street blue.<br />
Now I won’t leave Father’s side; who knows when<br />
earth might tumble open, swallow him, too?<br />
You know the queen flew here; kneeled down and prayed,<br />
left a fancy white wreath on brother’s grave.</p>


THE RESTORED NEW TESTAMENT translated by Willis Barnstone

Living Large

Silence Took My Tongue When My Brother Went

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Parent term ID to retrieve direct-child terms of. Default empty.

Search criteria to match terms. Will be SQL-formatted with wildcards before and after. Default empty.

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July 3, 2010Michelle BittingSilence Took My Tongue When My Brother Went

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July 3, 2010Michelle BittingSilence Took My Tongue When My Brother Went

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