Three Hours after the Miscarriage in Thailand

The more I wait
The more I wait
The bamboo house empties rivers and paddy fields
And fistulas of barren rice
Does time bleed? As I have bled?

Can the scent of lime and
The smell of bird fat roasting
Cleanse the black pudding of the morning?
Those clotted clumps of memory
Turn red and black and asphalt
What cannot be cannot come again.
The people that could have been.
The ransomed lives unfought for and unspent.

There is darkness around the electric charge of food
A forked incandescence
My mouth salted like the furrow of sand