The Double Mother

I wish I could make you laugh with your teeth,

a little latch lifted,

your laugh my gift.

Uncorked, you’d say,

“I AM the sun,

we can stop pretending now.”

My protectress.

My two-belly baby.

I’m in love with the mirror and you’re the mirror’s lady.

I’d sigh

and the sigh would

leave me empty

so that I can start over with you.

You knew my question was a request

and you wanted it too.

Baby Poem Part II

A shutter and a gurgle,

a bald babble and compliant broken coo—

Do you shine like your mother? A rotisserie glow or a sweetish jello sheen?

Floating in my milk-made world on the Upper West Side,

the crackling belly of a crosstown bus,

its velvet fur of rust and buttering of gas.

I focus on the clock,

measure you

like I measure time.

Earlier Work