A secret hung in the air. <br />The party had begun. <br />Faces screaming saccharine <br />forced out the impossible celebration. <br /> <br />Her inexpressible groan called still, <br />silent amidst the shuffle of denial. <br />A great elephant sits quietly, <br />surrounded by edgy smiles <br />and consolation. <br /> <br />Oh, mother, <br />womb scratched and sucked dry, <br />eyes staring straight, <br />steely cement looks deep beyond <br />the night into a dead future. <br /> <br />The swollen pieces of your face throb, <br />coated in salt and the creaking of a rope <br />cuts deep into your dreams. <br />A baby cries, hung from the eaves, <br />just barely fledged, and now he leaves. <br /> <br />Twenty-seven Christmases <br />spit at your feet, <br />so few really seen and felt, <br />confident that the next ten <br />would make the circle complete. <br />Today his calves dangled <br />at your chin, spinning. <br /> <br />A constant fan now clucks around you, <br />mother no more. <br />Other children do still walk the walls <br />and shores of you, but it is gone. <br />The life that once shone in your eyes <br />moves away with the beast <br />back to the unwalkable Serengeti.<br /><br />Sonja Broderick<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/untimely-death/
