Student Poetry: THE LOVE EMBRACE OF THE UNIVERSE by Evangeline Speedy

THE LOVE EMBRACE OF THE UNIVERSE

To mother, to marry,
to smother, to carry,

I crack and bleed for you, o wise one,
as you bawl, bald as a child in my arms.
Do you smell the earth?
Do you smell the iron, the rain, the milk, my dear,
as she weeps for us?
She who made us (just as
we made each other) of clay and spit
now holds us lest we break.
Lest we tumble into the darkness and smoke that you know so well.

I crack and bleed for you, beloved,
as my ring finger swells around its umbilical adornment. 
The sky aches like my abuela
and I, like my bisabuela -
I am no woman, no man, bones and blood I am. 
But you -
three-eyed and glistening -
sleep like the dead, head on my breast.