The Bruise

motherhood is beautiful

& disturbing

the bruises on my young

daughter’s arm

not a halo

nor the tattoo she wants

us to share

when the next half of her life

arrives though she’s still young

enough to believe

she should stay a child

always, & 18 only means

she’s a child who can

vote & needle something permanent

into her body

I question my palm

in prayer against her skin

then thumb with tenderness the dark

ink blotch

checking for a match

——

firebright first-

red go the stages of bruising

in the immediate after­-

math, the geometry of fresh

raspberries swollen

at the flesh, or tender

cuts of raw meat the butcher

still wraps in sheaths of paper

that crunch like fall leaves

staining the ground

or wind wilding a dance as chiles

sizzling with oil on the comal

that fire, that brilliant

flash & then

as any flame begins losing

oxygen, it blues

into a suffocating darkness

a mother notices

a few days

late

——

I take her around the house

the house like a village

flashing the purple

splotch, common fig

as if  I’ve just plucked it

& soon will bake

into a pie but I’m not proud

I’m asking every-

one Do you know how she

got this, asking Did you

do this to her

because we know if we can’t find

the one who did

then we might as well

have done it ourselves

——

does this give the mother

too much power, too much

guilt

some of you might still be wondering

how a fig is baked

into a pie

o black­-

birds

I love you

but maybe I’m not

singing

for you

——

remember once a dressing

room, a plain department

store in a makeshift mall

in the smallest town

in the world

remember a girl & her

mother, one shuffling the other

into a brand new

dress, perhaps a party

perhaps a church perhaps

sleeveless perhaps

scallop-necked

remember the darkest

string of pearls

tended from the black lip

oyster, from that sea-

bed, across the girlthroat girlsoft

girlgone breasts

& the mother, remember,

stares long enough

the girl later recalls

nothing

but her mother’s sadness

& the silence

as she slid

under the veil of dress

as a wildthing caught & let

back into hiding

——

my daughter might

have struck herself with the backfire

of the bow

as she cleaned her target

arrow-straight

into the bull’s-eye

she might have knocked

into the trampoline pole

while beating her brother

at wrestling & not because he

let her

does he admit defeat

there are a dozen ways

this brave & dauntless girlchild

might have gathered

blood to pool

under her winter long

sleeves & most of them

innocent

——

but if l don’t ask

the silence grows

& when I lift my own

there they bloom

o raucous

red

to frostbitten limb

till soggy pear

& still when the time comes

never disappear

but flush

again

first bud at spring

perennial

as field burning

after harvest

——

What tattoo will we get

I ask, when the time comes &

her answer is simple

a clear sky

weeks after fire

you might even say

pie in the sky

& if you’re already

weightless by now

you’ll under-

stand

when I tell you

she said Each other’s