Back Ache, a poem

Outside the hiss of the shower

I had

a candle lit,

            I held my baby in the stream

my mother

                        I had something to ask her

I wet the baby’s hair in the water, he keeps

            his eyes closed,

If only I could remember.

Laying before the fire,

            I try to through my back heat melt the

rocks that have formed a wall

I cannot scale it

                        or take away the stones by hand,

belt of stones,

                                    I lay before the fire.

Hoping to melt away

            what chains

me

and makes of

my womb a pandora’s box;

                        up rises, and catches at the swinging

gate of my spine, hard carnelian of unfelt grief

which glows in me like the fire.

            I swallowed it when it was smoke

it spun webs in my lungs and fell down the chute of my spine

to crystallize my hips;

            I cannot move while the fire molds my back.

The shower hisses to my neck

             my baby has his eyes closed against my hand

the candle flickers

What I think I should feel I do not feel

            My back has locked me where I would pivot

I need to run

My womb is trying to whisper to me secrets

            too primitive for words.

A shrine has been formed at the base of my back.

            I close my eyes,

                        I have to ask my mother

            My bones can be reassembled

I lay on the freezing ground

in a heap

                        stones wave as a wall over my low back,

the children of the forest are walking by with spears

                        made of fish bones,

I cannot move

I am thirsty

I have water

            but I cannot drink it

it eddies circles darker than night in my womb

            Something older than my body

lives in my body,

                        My baby has gone to sleep, and I turn off

the shower,

                                    the candle jerks

Hands of steam meanwhile

massage us.