Leah Baker: 3 Poems
Conception
On the edge of a stone
ledge, I stood with my friend’s
small, brown hand in mine.
We closed our eyes in
the dusky sunset,
and two bats, somehow,
burst between our adjacent legs,
their quick and leathery wings
shocking us to laugher.
Nearby stood the two men about
to leave us. The night
before, I dreamed of conception,
the terrible timing,
and the relief that it wasn't his
because that would frighten him,
make him disappear sooner.
I worship each lover
even in the impossible task
of aligning my body's purpose
with my heart's.
You know, Parvati
made herself a son
when her husband went for years
into the mountains.
She mixed sandalwood
with the dew of her skin
and there was a child.
There is something beautiful
in the idea that a woman
could fulfill her longing alone.
I listen for the tingling residue
of bat wings against my
thigh, think of the thin
likelihood
that they should fly so brightly between her
legs and mine.
Bracing Hope
The lamps went out.
I slept inside the courage
of one little finger,
one nook in the crevice of a shoulder and
my thumbs lodged into the
curl of my fists. I moaned into
the first hour of morning, asked for your hand
to cover the space of growing ache inside of me.
Even when your hand was unwilling, it was warm.
I tried to be still, a comfort to myself
but couldn’t stop
from hoping you’d soothe me instead.
I am waiting for the long obstacle of mediocrity,
of wanting,
to fall into the deep knowing of self-gratification.
Somehow, our two hungry mouths
never really touch
when we kiss, like two fishes
both gasping hungrily for water to soothe their lungs,
lips opening and closing,
inhaling nothing but air.
There is a half burned hole that forms on my tongue
each time I think of
the other women you touch.
My teeth sink into the stem of Hope
they had been grimly bracing toward
and abruptly snap it off.
A song is a woman's voice
breaking out like a fist pushing through fabric,
a wash of scarlet across a pale face
sweetly sung, clear ringing.
I learned Courage at the academy of night
against the backdrop of my little self.
I stand embodied,
I, perpetually the larva
of my future.
How It Always Is
The heart grieves as deeply as it loved.
One night, the realization of its loss
will open as a sudden chasm,
writhing its abysmal anguish
into the milk-white soap of a bath.
What courage it takes to feel,
for pain to enter the canals
of one's throat
as water!
I will howl under the weight of loss.
It will roll through me,
the excruciating gleam of a winter's knife,
salt into the hotflash pulp of a new hurt.
Anger will erupt as fire.
I will dream of guns, crones, hot steam.
I will feign strength, prickly hardiness,
desert flower vibrancy.
I will seethe at the women
whose blossoming bodies you lay your itchy fingers on.
I will pity them.
She is the tender mirror of me, in which
you will make the same hurtful mistakes.
I love her already.
I hold her weeping heart already.
I will sink into the belly of despair.
I will dissipate.
(the image of my being is shifting /
the image of my consolidated being /
departing from me)
I will forget who I am.
I will remember.
I will vow
to marry myself.
And my heart will blow open
at the first touch of a mouth that
offers a kiss.
Leah Baker is an English teacher at a public high school, and works regularly with her students to develop, refine, and submit their own writing for publishing. She’s been published in Pointed Circle, Voice Catcher, and For Women Who Roar. She is a feminist, gardener, yogi, sound healer, and world traveler. You can find more of her work at www.OpalMoonAttunement.com.