Drunken thing,
there was death in you from birth.
Looking at you, sometimes,
your mother still remembers
a slick and quiet creature,
a tongue dark like a river pebble.

Now you sit sullenly,
stirring at the brightness of
a young girl’s summer frock--
she has lips like cherry wine, and, you might imagine
that she came to this world screaming.

No, no, her blush is not for you!
What does she know of you, of all
captive in silence? No,
She is the absence of you
including, as I said,
that foul sense of death;

I’ll speak on that:
it’s scent must be of violets
or some other dark flower--
what else is the color of bruises?
of marrow?
of a young girl’s cheek gone cold?

The day you were born,
the doctor cut a cord
wrapped tight around your throat.