Bringing You Up

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Bringing You Up

I take you by the hand and pull youyank like I am ferocious& really meaning it I squeezethe cloth at the back of your shoulderblades into handlesto lift you

so you will move

you willmove ifI have to carry you the whole goddamned way so help me

I have a well planned day of definitives:to get to the bank machine streetcar you to daycarethen to work thisI plan thingsto work smoothly

& your legs know how to move things up in the worlda small chopper raising fury I catch on my shoulderbawling head first no no nor justice

just one heart muscling in the gutterhow far mine sinks before boarding us bothto meet triumph in the driver's eyewhere I see ourselves merelya bright mess of primary willsbefore that steely & incontrovertiblelook you give the publicbringing your mother up for scrutiny yesup to something measurablygood again

What the arms can do for younow that you are thirty-four poundsone third my ideal weightone quarter the real thing I have becomequite impossible

What I can lift to my chin to kiss half asleep

What I can wrestle from sidewalkswhen you pretend to be mineral

What I hold clear of you when the shit hits my hand& I loathe itthe shit I hold in like a muscle structurewell-toned at the Y I am this whollyabdominal characterevolving

With every repetition this body impresses me tono endhow I carry you one kilometre in the snow without coffeeor chocolatewithout sex in the morning or the squeaky clean nightbeforewhen what matters is the obviousness of exhaustionexhaustedhow the brain's role in reproduction really must bedebateduntil inevitably on this matter the eyelidsflit updown

the set ending

The Shit

After fourteen hoursthe midwife suggests an enemato make more room for you

as if all the shit in my life up to nowis on its way out

& in its place you will come

Way Out

For example I could live on another planetbut nursing would suffer& the milking blister on your top lipwould deflate

harder to begin again with a fresh perspective

Close up to youI can't find a way out of your gazebrown universe where all colour visitingdecides to stay becomingsome of your spectralvision

That for now sums me up my usualin-your-face attitude on your way back from sleepbe assured I'm there againmilking you awake& gazing

no way out of methough you may wish it someday

The pink blaze of your buttocks punishesme too, though you feel it realercries reeling from your mouthsobs that turn to coughing

The special blanket, well operated, wraps you upits hand-sewn stitches hold you togetherthough our friend made it, not medisarmed for months nowby suffusion in the red nakednessyou present to me three hours lateragain I'm so sorry

I couldn't sew a thingexcept this burn of lousy motheringto my cheekthe red one on each side yousee me wearing nothing at all through

yet hold me to the moment comingwhen pain stops &suffers our excesses suchlittle children togetherrashbummedrougefacedwrapped in blankets

Hair of the womb thatbit us one and the same, what'sthe difference

The Moment Coming

What precipitousness there is between the words moment & momthe eternity I've slipped into

sperm into the egg

on mutual orgasm my babyfinger into his earwhich made the occasion particularly memorablehim plugged up, ready to popme laying in the member

neither of us having been exactly so obvious beforeabout the universalsymmetriesyou will unhinge

Or the other wordspacifiedsoothedby siliconethose two bits of my bodyinfinitely reproducibleinsertablesuckleableif you just say the wordthe loud onethe waaha whole industry will answer

Holding ourselves back is de rigueuryour mouth on my breast could bite as easily& I could swell with erotic desire

or vanish, instead

You coax me toward the common interestthe human problem of growing upgraduallydrag me by one nipple to a reckoningwith how sexy we are

soft breast your eye is up against constantlyeunuch skin of your cheek, bellows I adorein a cycle of puffing, suckingchuffing like a pony's nostril as it laboursaround the demands of a premature bridlethis new & more appropriate moralitywhere my tit is a temple nowaround which we gather & gaze & supplicate

The suspense of feelingis killing me sometimes I thinkI will forget where I'm leading you, lapse

& feel it

& have to pull you off quicklyaway from who I've been in the world up till nowbefore I installed my heart in my mouth& came here like a virginto serve you

Your body giggles in the jumping devicein practical bliss as we've planned itcushion catching your anklesspringing you back up to weightlessness& so it goes

the kind of parenting we provide as we scuttlein the sheets, ass-naked & deliberateabout) arousal (we have forgotten everythingoutside the parentheses of platonic loveor do it badly now

only one eye each on the other's hard onthe second consumed in your all-seeing gaze

whose dear focus the sight of us like this mightsplit irremediallydespite the consensual barricade of pillowswe try to protect each other's fuckinghuge genitals from bouncing up overwhile still enthusiastically pursuing whatwe did to make you

not knowing whether you will ever let us

find it again

As you come through the canalI feel like a football player, huge neck muscleshauling my entire brain far downto where it lived in primordial daysin the pelvisnear the sacrumshaped like an infant's headringed with caput, cartilaginous againstthe forces of history coming

The history that will make it ascend, board itsevolutionary lift up through the torso and ribcagesqueeze past the heart, underfed apatosaurus with its metrerunning out, nudging it off kilter, thendull & overstuffed for a few centuriesidle at the throat, a calcifying lump not quite sureof its trajectory,

if there even is one

if it's worthy

how the hell it got here

until reverse hydraulics begin squashingbeyond grunts more like modern linguistics itbursts through to the roominessinside the back of the headmy entire head readied like a handabout to cast you out the top

giant whistle into oxygen

for the first time

The Hell

Of seeing your father in youwhen I am angry at himyour eyes flashing from side to sidebetween us

Things in the public park we attendare deteriorating

The government cares little aboutthose who are wageless

Pigeons and squirrels appear to beliving with AIDS

Your fingers wrap right around the elephanthandlebars

& your feet hold you vertical

I see youat the top of your slidethe high onegleaming

I Fucked Maria boasts the wall

Fuck'n Shit For Brains sings the jungle gym

I see you

Rather than brawnto make a man of youI choose the story of how I skatedaround a lake at nightsearching for love

In high school I had so manybrains in my headI couldn't speak& gave these smiles to boysmeaning I can never have youcan I

small yawn in my lapyour intelligent brain overmy intelligent cuntI want to graft you to meas if you won't becomesoon enough

one of the inpenetrable

Songs I make up for you are sung thena dark voice is how you will remember meif I should die before you wake

If something should happen to youthese are the songs I will remember you laying bya night without light never able to singin the dark again

If you should travel beyond my voiceI shall find you, said the mother rabbitin complete control of the rabbit universe

while I sing to keep youas barely awake as possible

From your sideways gaze through the railsmy body shaped like wicker& glowing in the cornerghosts over to the last thingyou shall hear

if I have to sing until midnightsaid the mother rabbityou shall hear my pure self

If all of the parentslove their childrenthe way we love youthen the world is far moreunbearable thanwe thinkin our newly shuddering skinsraw as adultstrusting in you to change us

© Christakos Margaret