When Women Kiss Bellies
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When I was six months in the baby drink
A luckless woman kissed my mother’s belly
changed my fate with lips of smoke and scotch
and I was turned like others at the touch
When women kiss bellies, they only hope a bit
When women kiss bellies, the rest is about knowing
the odds of any babies in the dark
the definite wages of men on the march
When women kiss bellies they are washing the future
the corpse that will carry an unfolding child to the next life
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A woman kissed my mother's belly
Now lost within days of mercury mirrors
searching for a safe house only slowly burning
its throat an anthem red
its smooth slab of certainty buckling
I consider how the world moved infinitesimally
floated everyone in wordless dark unreasoned ways
toward our series of fragile frames
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