Poem: "The Dream Child"

The Dream Child 


—so what will Baby/be tomorrow?—

     Antonia Pozzi, “The Dreamed Life”


The Dream Child

Who speaks to me speaks
to a stir—
in air, a ripple
of veil—perhaps—
speaking
caused the ripple,
hard to tell.

But body is sensed—
joy—as possibility,
everything small
but perfect,
toes,
lips capable
of taking ravishment—giving.

They walk
the woods as others
make love,
the man who
will be sent away
to Rome,

the girl who will lean
back on grass—
trembling
until the slight wind
drops.


The Skylark

These children
take up so much space.
They tug, they push.
They stride ahead, expecting the world
to give way.
Even when they tumble,
they cover
ground.

I watch behind the elm
and step out—
a shadow.

Only when I open
my throat—
to call, to hiss—
do I
occupy
a place,
as when the sound
of the sea takes up the room
of a shell,
or when sky is skylark.


Sip

In their rage,
the dead break
things—soup bowls,
flour mills.
I can see
them, foreheads
burning but not
burning up.
They can’t see
the unborn.

They think they are
looking at a loaf
of fire, water
becoming soup.


Rejoining

Whatever else
I am, I am
the earth-clod
on which my parents step
together, her feet
on his feet.

Her fingers weave
between his fingers
like ropes
around a raft.

White wisps—
on a second
look—join
as cloud
and sail off.

I am
left behind.