Mother and Father in Death
He dreamed about his mother and reached out
To touch her, but his hand came up against
A marble wall of blackness. In a pout
She lingered in her death, her love condensed
In all the darker harms she did to him.
Her silent song behind that barrier
Was a solemn and steadfastly blue hymn
Of compromise. She was a carrier
Of such infections as a mother gives
When she has HIV, although of course
She thought of it as love. The womb scar lives
In him in daylight, having labor’s force.
His father? Well, his father doesn’t glow.
His father beckons him in granite snow.