First, months

of flash, thud, shudder,

then the wailing...

                            Months,

that's half a young cat's life

I saw a bride splendid in white garments
I saw a woman with one hundred children 
The children plump and firm within her arms,
But some fell down or strangers took and ate them

I feel it, first as a stir,
turning deep in the murky water.
Surfaces up for air, a twitch
on the lake in my head.
A flip, and it disappears.

I was born with a map of Australia on my face;
it was beautiful, my mother told me – 
there was nobody like me in the whole wide world
who could trace the edges of down under

There is a place (believe me,

            she said) where if, if

                          you go beyond

the street lights, to the lane's end,

Standing by the river, my face grew
into a flat fish and floated off
to a lily pad, and I was lonely
without myself, without my twin.

The moon was married last night
and nobody saw,
dressed up in her ghostly dress
for the summer ball.

I spied a small lonely boy.
I was his beautiful red balloon,
from morning through to noon,