BABY BORN WITH HEART IN HAND

Patricia Smith

 

Raipur, India, Nov. 2005

 

 

The birth, with its flat, sudden tongue

of brilliant, did not rattle her. She let them

have their scoured steel and questions of

small souls. With no done throat to voice

question, she was slow and a monster with know.

 

Even with the heart loosed, sliced public

from its trembling cup, daughter will live this.

Some ghosts stay. Removed, they remain,

unleashed breath unsettling the skin of water.

 

He had known that, even before He placed

the frantic drum flat on her palm, even before

He wrapped her little fingers around it.

 

Patricia Smith (NY)  is the author of four books of poetry, including Teahouse of the Almighty, a 2005 National Poetry Series selection and winner of the 2007 Hurston-Wright Legacy Award and Blood Dazzler, forthcoming from Coffee House Press.


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