Heavy Breather
Erin Emily Ann Vance
Mother, may I strangle the milkman?
The nanny?
The cashier at the corner store?
Mother, may I plant the foxglove and the fingers
of the bad men?
Will hands grow out of the stubs like trees?
Or will the split and grow beneath the soil
like garlic?
Mother,
may I drink the soft honey from the headless children?
May I live in the hollow leather of your severed breast?
Mother! Be gentle.
May I stroke your ear?
Mother, may I sleep with you tonight?
Mother, listen to me.
I am racked with pulsations.
Your earrings, corpses strung up in cotton cocoons,
your crown a garland of bones.
Mother, may I borrow your lipstick
and your breastplate
and the silver fillings in your molars
and your mothball wedding dress
Mother,
may I become the dust of your living.
Cauldron Anthology
33