Sample Poems: "Earth's Milk"

My First Father

(For Leland Perry Harrington)

I am nearly new. You are nearly a doctor
bending over my crib,
my baby brain sniffing you out.
You're my me, my not me,

my orange neck and eyes blinking
everywhichway through glass. I imagine you
with your shirt open--nothing hotter
than Houston in July--

or in one of those sleeveless
T-shirts men used to wear in the 40's.
You pat my belly round as bread.
You would slice it to make me laugh.

My lungs are starting to function.
Yours have a gun at their back.
You must have whispered.
Were you warm against my ear,

my heart popping its brand new beat?
I would get it back if I could: a gasp,
a suck, a song of lakey syllables. The likely
laughter, your footsteps fading down the hall.

Might as well bang a soda machine for lost coins.
You were no sooner thought
than gone-my unready eyes losing you
before learning you by heart.

Earth's Milk (2007), Main Street Rag

Casualties

I walk out of my grandmother’s small frame house
and pull my weight up to the first rung.
The cow we call Red comes to the fence. I lean against him,
feeling his warmth, his indifference.
It’s the day after the cat walked toward the light, threading cars
on the highway before getting himself killed.
Everything is perfectly still. Perfectly cruel.
The train I love passes along the edge of the world.
Then it’s the future.
My grandmother walks outside, her heart
ticking under a dress made thin by too many washings.
She cups her mouth and calls my name for years
before turning the knob
and pushing her way into the dark.