Elephants

An elephant is the only mammal
that cannot jump.
I guess that's why it stands here
in the middle of the living room
while we serve tea on its back
and speak in hushed tones.

A God Who Looks Like Me

I want a god who looks like me,

a god who sweats,

who cries,

who bleeds,

a god who breastfeeds

Her babies.

I want a god who has known hunger,

who has known hard work,

known darkness and despair.

I want a god who has struggled

and survived,

walked picket lines,

overcome oppression.

I want a god who loves

and laughs

and rages when required.

One More Night at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital

Her swollen face is the color of a cactus bloom.

A thick red seam runs from nostril to lip,

an arroyo crusted over.

She sits on the white-sheeted cot in the hallway

while white-coated creatures scuttle by

like desert creatures in the night.

It is always night when she is there.

Her open eye is sandy and dry,

as if it has not rained in many years.

The injured eye weeps tears

that disappear like water

sinking into sand.

Chindi in My Womb

You were lifted through a hole

in the wall of my womb

seconds too late, and now

your ghost lingers inside me.

The doctors say I can have other children,

they say they have repaired my fractured womb.

But what do these white men know?

Surely there could have been no evil in you,

so tiny, so pure.  But your tiny eyes closed

without ever greeting the dawn,

and my breasts still swell with milk

that now feeds only your ghost.

My womb is like a hogan with a hole.

St. Catherine’s Home for Unwed Mothers, 1956

Her body parted like the Red Sea

and the child burst forth like a lotus blooming

in a splash of blood and light

and her cries were like church bells

tolling through the night.

Postpartum

For weeks I swam in the thick syrup

of depression, while you clawed at my breast,

struggling to remain afloat

in a sea of milk and tears.

You squinted in the light, while I

longed only to crawl inside my own womb,

to plant myself in the warm darkness

from whence you came.

Some Bells Should Ring

you were born on Easter

toes small as peas, hands clawing the air

my womb collapsing with the sudden emptiness

blood spreading like night beneath me

surely to god you’d think

at least some bells should ring

fourteen days and I signed the papers

stepped out into sunlight

that melted over me like butter

my breasts still weeping

my womb still bleeding

your hands, I’m sure, still reaching

surely to god you’d think

at least some bells should ring