Mary Morris
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Girl Reading a Letter, Vermeer
In the window of wavy glass,
my chameleon face—
milky, trapped there— I am
a phantom on a boat
stealing sailors from whales and drowning.
On the edge of shadow—a bowl of fruit
toppled over,
uneaten,
a breakfast from my worried mother.
Bird-song
dives into me,
knits a small nest
beneath the navel.
Here is the bed,
a blood red tapestry
woven into a geometry of villages
crumpled
just as the night he mounted me
like a swan,
told me the story, called me
Leda.
My bodice is loosened,
my breasts heave.
I read.
Sonogram, Filming the Unborn
There is a hum in the blood,
in the halls and holy rooms of the heart,
pumping future encounters.
Pearl, fetus, little prophet,
by now transformed from cartilage to bone,
bearing eyebrows and fingernails,
sucking thumb in a sheath of white vernix,
listening with cochlear intaglio
inside this preface, sound tide,
acoustic wand of frequency,
red shift to blue, imaging depth of field,
uncertainty.
I am on this gurney
in a sleeve of sheets—
shroud in the intensive care.
Creases in your palms are just a whisper.
Holy chorus—
hymn of your lungs form branches
to breathe, exquisite breath of thee.
There is a burning in this amniotic lake,
nerves coated with myelin flashing,
your hair and milk teeth buds sprouting.
An echo of sound waves, a symphony
of anatomy,
echolations,
umbilicus, cord, rope to the new world,
threaded
to your tiny body—
the final image, your hand,
opening and closing like a blossom
three times, like a flag waving:
I am alright, I am alright.
I am.
Bio
Mary Morris' publications include Indiana Review, Quarterly West, Nimrod, Poet Lore, Red Rock Review, Blue Mesa Review, The Sun, St. Petersburg Review, Gargoyle, and others, as well as an interview and reading at the Library of Congress for the program, 'Poet and the Poem.' Her nominations include the Rita Dove Award, New Mexico Discovery Award, a finalist for the Faulkner Award, Stan and Tom Wick Prize, Pablo Neruda Prize, Brittingham Prize, and a selection by Sam Hamill of Copper Canyon Press for The Monthly Review. Contact: Water400@aol.com
Author photograph: Ken Apt