Her Water, Breaking

     phlegm, icor and
            sugar

    thick waves of chocolate and gasoline

                and electricity streams
        from my tongue to your thumb

above our raft of cotton sponges,  trees on their heads,
        roots swirling,
passing, cracking, shivering,
            shedding earth and worms

        silver spoons and knives caught
            in root joints, a squirrel skull

the little animals killed
        and lied about

    a velvet speculum
        old wooden machines, still grinding underwater

            the blue ribbons
        our mother stole and tied to twigs
                outside her abbey

            in the heat,
        our hair rises like wings

                a doll's table
    set with glitter and flames,
                turning, dipping

your ivory handcuffs, scrimmed
        with our mother's lost recipes

silk surgeon's scrubs
cinnamon scalpel

        built for our bodies