*

Never housed in picture frames: took suitcases 
lodged my little ones in them. They were
too alive for strangers’ eyes, too loud
for the silence that was expected

around me. I saved them prematurely
from pestering, deathtrap, being smacked
out of balance, because this is certain: lion and lamb
are no longer together. I bore

technicality after technicality, declared inadmissible, a
brief gasping for air while my breasts engorged
no mother no mother no

began to leak. Afraid, I longed
to latch on to necessity.



     **

But I couldn’t get rid of them, that’s why
I kept them in the suitcases.

Because it’s not like something you wear
on the outside, a T-shirt
pants you get tired of or wear out and

it’s not something like nails 
or hair that you cut off either: what you carried

inside you you don’t want to lose. So
those suitcases meant a sort of trip back to
another uterine darkness. What did they need

   with light in their closed eyes.