Bluebird

Red lips bloom through the glass,
a reflection of her
lying back.
Blue blooms emerge on her calves
like withered buds
with the end of spring.
She wraps herself in Pashmina soap,
shaves her skin in the bathwater.

Soap drips,
bursts,
wakes.
It unravels in the water
like some semen snake.
Love is a close shave, she says, a razor’s edge.
But she hums of hope,
hope,
of hope instead.

There’s a faint cry, rustle on the wind,
her red toes grip a white porcelain edge.
There’s a faint cry, rustle from within,
she tidies barbs in the nest she’s begun:

Does his anger itch under skin like a rash?
Does his black-beak tongue spit at you like the rest?

All around her boisterous robins coo
a blinding song of union
her blue breast hidden in a white dress
my body shed
my body shed
for you.

Her body
is pregnant with whispers
and she aborts them
one
by
one
she holds them throbbing in her fingers,
do they hit her as hard as his fingers?
they whisper
run
run
run
her open mouth,
and a blind-eye sun –
A hawk dives on a bluebird singing.