all along the western front

grab me with summersummersummer electricity i'm bound and gagged with hormones as clear and true and painful as if i were thrown into the basement corner, hands tied, mouth bruised with cotton, left to silent spider dark while the rest of the world screams, fights, works, drinks, feels. here i am. in here somewhere, wiping baby shit, flipping clean white cotton sheets over mattresses, brushing back fine blonde hair, hungry for the grazing unshaven cheek of my husband against my belly and thighs. here i am. amongst the smell of chlorine baby bodies, sunblocked back of necks, loads of dirty tee shirts and the tight skinned square hands that scrub scrub scrub sinks, cabinets, tables, floors, hands, children. here i am. dreaming womanly dreams, incubating. here i am. the place that finds me true is next to my husband, beyond the world, taken into a small space that becomes unfolding and unfolding unto the universe and until there is the baby's questioning squall rising toward us, there is nothing but the electric feel of that. space.

i dream the strangest dreams, saturated with hormones. i can see in my dreams, the skyline lit neon and midnight blue, where the waking world lies beyond that lip, my life, behind the shadows of mind, my dreams, where i am speaking in a southern accent and my Nana is there in her small heels and powder and there is a town where hours are houses and houses are stories and streets are movie screens.

in my dream i am naked but i am not afraid or embarrassed. i am powerful. this is saying to me you am going in the right direction

dinner is chicken and squash, baby needs bathing bubbles, along the wall there are webs of bugs and hair of the dog that my hands will smooth away, inside behind the quiet stillness of my eyes and mouth and stern set of my features inside i am still here

here i am