WORK TO DO
CATHY WITTMEYER
I like to think you were swimming
in pure amniotic fluid
(save the champagne that first night)
Your growing space I kept pristine:
no alcohol, no caffeine, no smoke.
I like to think of you swimming
on our first escape to the sea – the Priel –
Toddled footprints in foamy early sand.
In the shallows, I blew in your face,
you submerged and you swam.
I like to think I leave you swimming
in the purest atoms of H and O
breathing air that is trusted breath
absent soot and acidic mist.
Instead, I leave you the cleansing.
I hate to think of leaving you
beaches awash in waste
trash that we never bought or tossed.
I leave you honeybees choking on chemicals
coating vegetables we rather grew ourselves.
I dread to think that I am leaving you
roads of bubbling asphalt and
the bicycle I traversed them on. My shoes.
I leave you flames performing seed serotiny
destroying homes they fled for the city.
I leave you Child, with work to do.
∘∘∘