C.F. Sibley

 

woman 1 as prayer

I have come to you / as you taught me / Mother / dressed in third person

to be clean of my elaborate selfishness / I hungered / until the day I could

walk into the stalks and silk / and they did not move around me / I drove

northward in open air / until my skin translusced / bone blue in the January

dark / I hungered / as you taught me / to become the horizon / I understood

desire to be / before I knew what it was to be the animal / someone rides

away on / you know / I wanted instructions for pain / and like you I am

from a country where horror is a season / facedown in the backseat /

smelling of menthol and bleach / where the cherry trees outside / bent and

wept / their picturesque pornography / yes Mother / I hungered / and

when they opened my mouth / I swallowed your name.