Linda, you are
leaving
your old body now,
It lies flat, an old
butterfly,
all arm, all leg, all wing,
loose as an old
dress.
I reach out toward it but
my fingers turn to
cankers
and I am motherwarm an used,
just as your childhood is
used.
Question you about this
and you hold up
pearls.
Question you about this
and you pass by
armies.
Question you about his --
you with your big clock
going,
its hands wider than jackstraws --
and you'll sew up a
continent.
Now that you are eighteen
I give you my booty, my
spoils,
my Mother & Co. and my ailments.
Question you about
this
and you'll not know the answer --
the muzzle at the
oxygen,
the tubes, the pathways,
the war and the war's
vomit.
Keep on, keep on, keep on,
carrying keepsakes to the
boys,
carrying powders to the boys,
carrying, my Linda, blood
to
the bloodletter.
Linda, you are leaving
your old body
now.
You've picked my pocket clean
and you've racked up all
my
poker chips and left me empty
and, as the river between
us
narrows, you do calisthenics,
that womanly leggy
semaphore.
Question you about this
and you will sew me a
shroud
and hold up Monday's broiler
and thumb out the chicken
gut.
Question you about this
and you will see my
death
drooling at these gray lips
while you, my burglar, will
eat
fruit and pass the time of day.