Tarrare

Upon the ripples of a soft night,
the stillness envelops me like a coffin;
there are no breath sounds here,
the roots of all the poems I have written,
(that never have been) and will write,
become uprooted by quaking hands
in the gentlest stirring –

I do not know how to
hold the grief.

My hands are too small,
there is no piece of grief
that will sit plumb in
my palms, without
toppling over.

I worry
I’ll give into the urge to
unhinge my jaw and
swallow the grief
in supplication,
and accelerate the
decomposition.

My mother, not knowing
what I was, birthed me,
nursed me, bathed me,
gave me a name,
and nudged me towards
the light.

Even so,
had I known that no
pouring of light
will stop the
rotting of my heart,

I would have spared myself
the poetry.