A Number of Image Lines
A beggar woman
went to the house of a poor woman. The poor
woman gave the beggar
woman a little barley corn. The beggar
woman asked the poor
woman what she wanted and the poor
woman answered
that she would most like a little child to care for all of her own.
In days she felt the soft corners of her
belly stretching
as if a cube was growing inside her
No doctors could tell her why she heard static in
the milky spine of the night but she knew
like a mother knows
The television was plugged into her by its cord
transmitting and receiving
the sensation of fetal movements known as quickening
Her nipples darkened to almost black
against her daisy breasts, her legs cricked and buckled
but her face shone like butter
Her center of gravity began shifting
the round earth moves like a pendulous child but she
soft block scooted through her day
She squeezed and smoothed the
varicose veins emerging from the four front corners like
plants laying roots
In months she shuddered out
a small television set
that played a crackling movie of a beggar woman
who comes to a house and leaves eating barley corn
