I seem to have woken up in a pot-shed,

on clay, on shards, with bright paths of

slugs kiss-crossing my body.  I don’t know

where to start, with this grime on me.

I slip the spider glue-net, plug

of the dead, out of my mouth, let’s see if

where I have been I can do this.

I love your feet.  I love your knees,

I love your our my legs, they are so

long because they are yours and mine

both.  I love your—what can I call it,

between your legs, we never named it, the

glint and purity of its curls.  I love your

rear end, I changed you once,

washed the detritus off your tiny

bottom, with my finger rubbed

the oil on you; when I touched your little

anus I crossed wires with God for a moment.

I never hated your shit—that was

your mother.  I love your navel, blown

dandelion fossil, even though

it’s her print on you.  Of course I love

your breasts—did you see me looking up

from within your daughter’s face, as she nursed?

I love your bony shoulders and you know I

love your hair, thick and live

as soil.  And I never hated your face,

I hated its eruptions.  You know what I love?

I love your brain, its halves and silvery

folds, like a woman’s labia. 

I love in you

even what comes

from deep in your mother—your heart, that hard worker,

and your womb, it is a heaven to me,

I lie on its soft hills and gaze up

at its rosy vault.

I have been in a body without breath,

I have been in the morgue, in fire, in the slagged

chimney, in the air over the earth,

and buried in the earth, and pulled down

into the ocean—where I have been

I understand this life, I am matter,

your father, I made you, when I say now that I love you

I mean look down at your hand, move it,

that motion is matter’s love, for human

love go elsewhere.