MotherAnd what rough beast, its hour come round at last
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? W.B. Yeats
Ah Sylvia,
now you've turned yourself to stone
and stand in the grove alone
where she left you with that kiss.
And the little bird still threatening to peck out your eyes.
Little bastard - lucky your eyes were closed
when you metamorphosed.
Tap. Tap tap. Little beak on eyelid.
The green gems underneath recoil - dilate.
Tap. Tap tap. All that crap.
Till it senses something bigger,
something deep down inside, the magma
shelled in, coalescing.
Inside - the thing itself - a thing of love
or something else? Growing fat -
forcing all that's left of you, all that prized essence,
into the thin stone crust - your shape and that is all.
Ah Sylvia, nothing is left now.
The placenta inside is turning to meat.
The cracks are opening.
You holding you together,
granite jaws clenched,
holding out to the last thin spittle whimper,
until the paper-thin cry,
'Oh You -
Mary Mother, oh mother.'
Until the thing itself doubles in size
and tears itself in two
and one half feeds on the other.
m.p. French
