tasting the blade

by Pam O'Shaughnessy
criticalpoet.org
Honorable Mention, August 2009
Judged by George Szirtes


during the time of the babies
before the return of the large hadron collider
when my arms were full of you
the warm day lay quiet and blue
we took naps
the hours before lunch

were thirteen billion
comfort – belonging to
our slow movements as if we’d last
into afternoon and you’d be forever new
lifting the spoon like a spoon
has never been lifted before

with joy as if joy is eternal discovery
pushing forward into time and mass
at the stores of women you hid
behind the racks at noon the clocks held
still noon even after the ice-cream
still noon at the kindergarten door

I was a grazing ewe raising my head
to see again the noon the lamb the grass
the grass the lamb the unending noon
look look you’d say and I’d look lazily
stroking your soft hair
at the daylit moon a slip showing