Blood runs, spills, rocks the mother's milk—
above the threshold nailed the bridal heart, 
now the wife's mouth churns, in pale-lipped yoking,
cants of mother, mother's mother, and the hammered jaws 
of husbands, one dead in the thistledown dust. 

And these children strange and muted,
with such clean ears and clever eyes,
move silently as paint on walls,
converging in each well-swept corner
to exchange on fingers hushed to lips
the gravity of unspoken loss.

The loss—
	a hole inside each tender body
	from which their guts grow round.

But there’s holiday bread and jams
and hearts minced lovely into pies,
with glances traded secretly 
as liver in a smile.

And too—
	there will come days 
when on the washing line
with blood and grass stains scrubbed free,
when silence yawns more loudly
	than the downstairs rushing footfall
	or the pennywhistle’s shrill.

Then—
	this turf (now grave thick and longing
for the weed-stalk thins of children,
their bruised brows and crushing feet)
	will seem as good a place as any
(though you never meant to call this place
your home)

And the children— 
	as sure as grapeshot,  
will have flung themselves
into other people, other places.

© 2008 by Nate Thomas. All rights reserved.