Leda, After the Swan

tick of ballbearings

tack of spoons in a drawer

clack of polished boules

 

some mornings I lie

too still for breath

so still that they are

still.

I do not jerk up to sirens birds doorbell shouts

hello hello through the letterbox hello

those mornings I lie

 

until I hear their applepip beaks

tick tick ticking

past my womb and my appendix

my spleen and my cervix

along tubes and funnels and meatlumps

(my body a phonograph, a flowerpot)

tick tick ticking

to escape

 

hush, babies.

we will.