Returns

The earth asks for my return:
Body lines settle softly,
A butter pat left by the stove.
I am, in fragments
Replaced by the air I breathe,
The apples I ate.
Unfair trade is assured;
Pieces of me get left behind.
After the babies departed my belly,
The once-thick hair, a banana
In its ponytail elastic,
Fell in black torrents.
Where did I leave the placentas
And the nail clippings
And the spit?
My bones are in cycle;
A daily disintegration
And faulty restoration
That is running out of bricks
And mortar, though I consume
Rations of minerals
Like a good girl.
The earth is asking for me
And I am docile in the descent.
The time for raging against
Gravity is past; I’m off
The apogee and sliding.
I look to the water, the soil–
I will be there soon enough,
Everywhere and nowhere
In the gingko leaves
Of the great front-yard tree
And the East River by which I learned
To shred a cadaver so delicately
With blunt scissors.

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