At dinner, sat in a high-backed wood chair,
trained to gulp tepid milk silently.
He coached me to open my throat so the drink
could pour down without resistance,
no deep inside churn of wet gush heard,
taught soundlessness so no prim ear
could tell that I did things to live.
Swallowing was the first way I learned
that my body, traitor, was an unfit home.
I would also learn, later, some other ways.
I sat by the bay, listening, all the water safe
out there and my mind became an ocean.In nautical lore, the swallow is an omen
a sign of the shore, to follow for harbor
by cries from their velvet brown throats.
But I, I in my wood boat flung far from the earth
knew no birds could find me to sing.
For the roaring wide sea sprawls
and swallows my edges and anchors.
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