Body Politic

For Anna

After you tore me, there was a clearing
Still as the moment of stillness after words,

Like coming upon a green space between trees
Out of the undertow of roots and creeper and growth in darkness
Face, limbs, feet, purpling, peeled raw.

Like this: your remarkable note
Rising to meet the blue above our heads,

Far beyond the clinical ceiling of this partitioned room
Beyond the unsolicited stab of pethidine in my thigh
Beyond the refusal to deliver you into my arms
Beyond blocked roads and minds,

You came out
Of my body
To claim your own

Your voice breaking over every fixed thing

Bearing me on its tide.