By Bertrand N. O. Walker
Hush thee and sleep, little one,
The feathers on thy board sway to and fro;
The shadows reach far downward…
The feathers on thy board sway to and fro;
The shadows reach far downward…
Explore Poems: Infancy
Showing 1-20 of 90 poems
- By Jaswinder BolinaMarian upstairs is anxious for an update
from the extended care facility
where her husband is dying.
Four blue macaws bustle through
the airspace above the neighborhood.
Her footfalls go cursing from room to room.
Here, the toddler testifies,
“Noooo poops!”
But the toddler is lying.
I tell him... - By Leslie Contreras SchwartzA body must remind itself
to keep living, continually,
throughout the day.
Even at night while sleeping,
proteins, either messenger, builder,
or destroyer, keeps busy
transforming itself or other substances.
Scientists call these reactions
—to change their innate structure,
dictated by DNA—cellular frustration,
a cotton-cloud nomenclature for crusade,
combat, warfare, aid,... - By Raymond Luczakits still hard to enunciate
ghosts talk how-how
not easy to master
context none
its glossary is impossible
me life complain-complain list
but i want forgiveness
mistake-mistake long-ago
im a jumble
find mouth gibberish-gibberish
even vowels have
can’t impossible
whats left are my hands
grab s-h-a-d-o-w experience
& breaking free in the sun
one day... - By Elana BellI am living outside of time and space as I have known it. When I walk through my neighborhood streets in early evening with my son strapped to my chest, I watch the other people going about their tasks: returning...
- By Sandra DollerI thought a tree dying was a sign of pestilence or terror or you’d done something wrong in your life and so your tree died. But no, sometimes, like a pet, they just go. Lifespan different than a dog, how...
- By Joyce Carol OatesI was Little Albert.
Nine months old in the famous film.
In a white cotton nightie, on a lab
table sitting upright
facing a camera.
Remember me? Sure.
You do.
First, you saw that I was a “curious” baby.
You saw that I blinked and stared
with all the... - By Alyse KnorrBetween us bobs the baby, solemn in her infant wet suit.
The pool is the only place where
screaming does not indicate terror.
The neighbor’s pansy beds—O to lie down in those beds
and doze. Greener than grass, says Sappho,
originator of envy.
My... - By Sandra Maria EstevesHalf blue, feet first
she battled into the world.
Hardly surviving the blood cord twice wrapped,
tense around her neck. Hanging.
Womb pressing, pushing,
pulling life from mother’s child.
Fragile flesh emerging perfect in blueness,
like the lifeline that sustained her,
yet limp, almost a corpse.
Her mother claims... - By Elise HempelEven now, after all
these years, my father, 89,
still uncertain when I call
whose voice it is—Ann's or mine—
saying Hi, Dad, and from where,
the next town or a different state,
still pausing in that powdered air,
this little silence as he waits
at the nursery... - By Rae ArmantroutDress like you care!
Eat like you care!
Care like you care!
You don’t think
apples just grow on trees,
do you?
•
A fish taps a clam
against a bony knob
of coral
to crack its shell —
which demonstrates intelligence
yes, but
is the fish
pleased with itself?
•
Alone in your crib,
you form syllables.
Are... - By Margaret HasseDoes my little son miss the smell
of his first mother? I wonder
as the mewl of his mouth
opens toward a plastic bottle
that is not her breast.
Sudden new mother,
I bury my nose deep
into his skullcap of ringlets,
his starry cheesiness.
In her good-bye letter... - By Matthew DickmanBlue light ringing through
the green grass.
The bent heads of petals
are not praying
to anything or to anyone.
Only we are
standing in a field of them,
my son and me and me
holding him.
In my arms he stretches
out to the very far ends of the... - By Aracelis Girmaysister was the wolf
& could cross easily through
the mountain dark to den
keen & quivered with
the muscular siege of slit purse
purple with hours
purse purple with birthwork
her sight both inward-
& outward-lit
on what small sparkle of pyrite
in the silt or the thick... - By Yusef KomunyakaaSay licked clean at birth. Say
weeping in the tall grass, where
this tantalizing song begins,
birds perched on a crooked branch
over a grave of an unending trek
into the valley of cooling waters.
The soil’s thirst, lessons... - By Bettina M. WalkerMy daddy understood
the richness of color and
shunned my oldest sister’s
whitewashed birth.
Who the white child belong to?
He asked in the delivery ward
shaming himself as the source.
Shadism colored my siblings’ perception.
An ideal hierarchy with light skin the pinnacle
after the paper bag test... - By Truong Tranit has long been forgotten this practice of the mother
weaning a child she crushes the seeds of a green
chili rubs it to her nipple what the child feels
she too will share in this act of love
my own mother says... - By Yona HarveyShe’s got a hundred & two temperature, delivery room nurses said. You’re
gonna live, though — long enough to know you’re going
to go as quickly as you came, gonna make your mother swear by you, going to
shake your Bible with red-tipped nails before... - By Rachel RichardsonNovel unbegun,
half-loaf rising,
lighthouse northward
and anchor south.
Lemon to grapefruit,
you sleep-step sidewise,
turnover, pop-up,
tongue in the mouth.