Lullabye
I dream of you dancing.
Blue – the color of forget-me-nots;
Green – something unhealthy
you can’t talk your way out of, this
the urge I have:
I am writing poems about babies.
Purple – the way they curl,
fingers around finger,
a bruise. And it hurts
to see you. I want to turn my words around
like Frost did, barrel of a shotgun,
something dangerous
like the spaces in a poem.
God could be there,
singing Merle Haggard,
dancing to Lorce
and not even knowing
the back from the front
of a stanza. The way lines break
like your voice –
And I’m sorry about that –
but at least I know now.
And I can’t drink fast enough
to make her go away; the cerulean lisp
of what we were, the something
in cellophane trying to breathe
in my pocket.
And if it shines
who can see it?
I want to divorce
nights sleeping alone –
constant wake in my stomach,
the growl of what could have been –
Do you understand,
I am always the angel, saving?
I take it all in,
the hiss of marry me
too familiar in my ears
like something soft, full
of round edges I walk into
at night, in the pitch
black: something healing
before it spread
across my skin.
Man of my flesh,
Bone of my bones
Didn’t I sing this to you
once, before the drummer started keeping time
and your hands began emulations
of places where God does exist
smooth between the knees.
I can’t seem to read this aloud
and that doesn’t make sense;
it’s the way you might leave a child
behind, let her belong to someone else
when all along you know she is yours.
– adrienne lewis