Seed

After the wave there’s the tide-pool in the ribbed
cup. Now I own what you left me and I’m
salt-rimmed, stained, lit by small hands trying
to feel their way inside, floating on the black
ocean beneath pelvic blood-stars. Because
I’m trying not to lose any, I sleep
against you to be the child on your back,
to be the fur on your skin, the eyes of your
shoulders. If I am the wolf drinking the milk
of darkness around your head, then you are
the lamb; or if I am the lamb then you are the wolf,
howling all night in my ear for the ordinary life.
I say to you: let your seed sprout from my lungs,
let me bear the strange animal of our love.

Ann Marie Macari
Seed is reprinted from Gloryland (Alice James Books, 2005).