Song for Baby-O, unborn
Sweetheart
when you break thru
you’ll find
a poet here
not quite what one would choose.
I won’t promise
you’ll never go hungry
or that you won’t be sad
on this gutted
breaking
globe
but I can show you
baby
enough to love
to break your heart forever
— Diane DiPrima
from Brass Furnace Going Out: Song, after an abortion
XI
your ivory teeth bare in the half-light
your arms
flailing about. that is, you
age 9 months
sitting up & trying to stand
cutting teeth
your diaper trailing, a formality
elegant as a loincloth, the sweet stench
of babyshit in the house: the oil
rubbed into your hair.
blue off the moon your ghostscape
mistaken as a broken tooth
your flesh rejected
never to grow — your hands
that should have closed around my finger
what moonlight
will play in your hair?
I mean to say
dear fish, I hope you swim
in another river.
I hope that wasnt
rebuttal, but a transfer, an attempt
that failed, but to be followed
quickly by another
suck your thumb somewhere
Dear silly thing, explode
make someone's colors.
the sense (five)
a gift
to hear, see, touch, choke on & love
this life
this rotten globe
to walk in shoes
what apple doesnt get
at least this much?
a caramel candy sticking in your teeth
you, age three
bugged
bearing down a sliding pond
your pulled tooth in my hand
(age six)
your hair with clay in it,
your goddamn grin
XII
sun on the green plants, your prattle
among the vines.
that this possibility is closed to us.
my house is small, my windows look out on grey courtyard
there is no view of the sea.
will you come here again? I will entertain you
as well as I can—I will make you comfortable
in spite of new york.
will
you
come here
again
my breasts prepare
to feed you: they do what they can
— Diane DiPrima
Also, I do not appreciate how the poets were stoned out of their minds when they were writing. It makes close reading and analysis trying and absurd projects.
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