July 25, 1995 To mayelle not yet 4 ½ mayelle the swing is there still immobilized by oppressive stillness in scorching july heat in boston you were the open sky the eyes the ocean & the big tree is still there fully covered from this year’s new leaves the swing is there alone sky/ocean holding the wind sun/sky losing the wind entering gentle fingers through closed links in the chain the grass is back whispering in it’s growth to your running image in the park chasing the birds migrating in fear that the returning winter might freeze their wings you are a still moment in the underexposed black & white film where for the lack of contrast nothing is visible except the sharp white edges on the contact print your hair grows in deep ocean in coral reefs that release blood droplets floating above the slimy surface I close my eyes to hold the you in the retina inside the damaged cornea the virus cut in fragmented steel particles inside the mind’s camera that holds the underdeveloped frames from the day I saw you even an old man has a right to love before the counterfeited credits roll over the screen in the last show before the shattered lens inside the brain melts in perennial winter the poem in the swing still immobilized by oppressive stillness sky/ocean holding the wind sun/sky losing the wind I close my eyes again mayelle this time your hand is strong breaking the links the swing thrusting the woman in you into the sun sky/ocean holding the wind sun/sky losing the wind July 28, 1995 9:30 pm
to maressia on the eve of the 2nd birthday maressia the moon saw you when earth's shadow was cast upon you in the total lunar eclipse the sky swallowed street tar from city night when you were light inside your mother's womb when roots howled under chemical earth reaching for soil beyond the bowel of the globe maressia the moon saw you between the sun obscuring earth in the total solar eclipse when the cosmonaut saw the sun's corona escaping the incandescent disk embedded in deep cosmic ink & on his return said the infinite space inside the sky is black & it will never be possible to see the universe in the same way from earth & the cosmonaut saw you fertilizing the belly inside the moon maressia I saw you the day after tomorrow one day old inside my aging trembling hands breathing a life howling to become woman inside the electrically charged storm in the white hospital cell in boston that could not suppress the new born scream maressia it was all in the moon the day of the eclipse when shielding the damaged cornea I saw your birth in the eclipse's blackness on earth
from that day on maressia I say your name for the world to know January 22, 1996 To Maressia 2-1/2 years old loving you maressia is to know space immeasurable filled in undiscovered matter gravitating invisibly in your presence it is to know the roots left in the soil after they strip the forest to genocide the flora yet to know you is not to know the language in your first cry is not to see the oxygen your lungs crave to fill with life loving you maressia is to question meaning on why the lightning ignites a seed & life is born it is to know the word love should never be spoken unless it is what in your essence is January 31, 1996 4:50 a.m. to Maressia it was the night the dragonfly mid air suspended woke up the dormant dandelion flower with vibrating wings your mother in hard labor on the city hospital table pushing to release you why was it so difficult to let you go through the uterus canal why did your birth caused so much pain NO it was not the night the 38 shot dead your mother’s homey across the street NO it was not the night she was handcuffed in the square & taken to prison NO it was not the many nights she said I want to get fucked up get high forever it was just another night full of pain |