DIE A LITTLE EVERY DAY
In the half broken morning
voices pound in her ears,
shrieks drowning outdoor bird songs.
Unable to hear them,
not understanding,
I hold her curled,
shivering in my arms.
Hearing the breath grating
in her clogging throat
seeing on her now boy flat chest,
raw knife cuts, unhealing sores,
suppurating pustules, swollen tissues,
I rage against my own
hard, helpless flesh.
Sometimes she answers the cries
in notes like the knell
if a broken bird we found
last summer in the park.
Strengthening as she grows weaker,
the voices are within her . . .
If only I could hear them, too!
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