blackbird online journal spring 2002 vol.1 no. 1

POETRY


TWILIGHT GREENAWAY

Fertility

They say women are born
with a finite number
of sentences in them
but like eggs in Rube Goldberg's
gangly machines
they still wobble out of us,

fill the whole way down
with suspense.

Some days mine stay
buoyed in the thin air
between tasks, then
end up silent run-ons,
their mascara running,
their bodies frozen
just to the right of the stage.

Speak them all we won't
and thank god for that.

Reflect and linger 
under our eyelids? 
I’m afraid they will. Every last
one of them, like water's
light on a wall.  


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