Invocation

O potato, freckled-in-rows-of-four-where-pierced
Heart, so dogged, so dog-like, bumping & literal,
And the brain who thinks it's better, my scheming
Separatist brain, my hoarder, hunched accordionist
How I've hated you, no less & no more than
My automatic lungs—wait, now, wait, now—
Hate the mouth asking How many times have I told you?
What language am I speaking? Shut up. Curse you:
I repeat, & this skin I shed but am not rid of, to this shaped
Rubber glove skin, a curse. A curse on the hands
Which had not & wanted, which had & did not want.
Curse my arms: I have flung him. I have held him down.
Curse my fingers: button-pushers, bruisers, crooks.
Curse the good ear who listened when the voice insisted
What kind of mother? Are you? —O, but bless
The deaf one, who scans for signs & still responds
To touch, to shadows that align like birds above the water.
Bless my arms: I gather him. Bless my hands, their strokes.
Bless the legs who kick to save themselves, & all right yes
This whole damned lot—gristle, tongue & stuffing, fat
Balloons, the eyes' horizon—& god help you,
Bless you, unlovely thudding pump, who sinks & sinks
And bobs back up

Copyright © 2007 Erin Malone All rights reserved
from What Sound Does It Make
Concrete Wolf
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission