Gone now the baby's nurse,a lioness who ruled the roostand made the Mother cry.
She used to tiegobbets of porkrind in bowknots of gauze—three months they hung like soggy toaston our eight foot magnolia tree,and helped the English sparrowsweather a Boston winter.
Three months, three months!
Is Richard now himself again?
Dimpled with exaltation,my daughter holds her levee in the tub.
Our noses rub,each of us pats a stringy lock of hair—they tell me nothing's gone.
Though I am forty-one,not forty now, the time I put awaywas child's play. After thirteen weeksmy child still dabs her cheeksto start me shaving. Whenwe dress her in her sky-blue corduroy,she changes to a boy,and floats my shaving brushand washcloth in the flush. . . .
Dearest I cannot loiter herein lather like a polar bear.
Recuperating,
I neither spin nor toil.
Three stories down below,a choreman tends our coffin's length of soil,and seven horizontal tulips blow.
Just twelve months ago,these flowers were pedigreedimported Dutchmen; no no one needdistinguish them from weed.
Bushed by the late spring snow,they cannot meetanother year's snowballing enervation.
I keep no rank nor station.
Cured,
I am frizzled, stale and small.
