Lantern Review: Issue 5
It means a new vocabulary:
oxytocin for the bond
that makes mothers shed milk at a wail
milia for the grain
on the bridge of his fingernail nose
and before I’ve read lanugo
the down between his shoulder blades
gone. The scent too: night-
bloom freshness
nape and limb:
no name I’ve found
though if it were an ideogram
I'd write it rind and aura;
field and fold; cycle
The Hybridity Issue
that must be tended or
to stoke a little fire.
My son, I'll give my life for you
—Miss Saigon, Boubil & Schonberg
Proud I could name the spasm
of yellows and broken eyelashes
dying on the sidewalk:
Butterfly.
Couldn't rise out of our circle.
The other boys
felt only the usual compassion: I plucked it
into my mouth, spit-
sticky wing strokes
slow-swallowed
glassine—