Transformation

Written for Son of Slam Finals; the prompt was "my best ever poem."

Midnight sounds conduct a chilly
concert. She contributes,
penning her last-ever poem
to me. With a maudlin, sorry
syntax to her pithy prose
         and blatant disregard for rhyme or meter,
she leaves me with a note of nonsense:
“Never stop
believing.”

         (as if I were the one
         who’d demanded something proven).

At six thirty-three in the morning
the phone is introduction for my husband,
who recites his worst-ever poem
to me. With the dull, trite
phrasing of an amateur’s voice
         and a disgraceful lack of metaphor,
he softly speaks his piece:
“She’s not
alive.”

         (as if swerving round the word
         would keep me from the crash).

Five months the untapped tears collect
as mother's milk for our babe,
becoming my best-ever poem
to him. With a helpless, hungry
latch on my swollen breast
         and certain mindful meditation,
his eyes and ears receive my verse:
“Oh, how mamma
loves.”

         (as if all emotion lay cocooned
         in chrysalis, and he born of the
         butterfly).