sleep

Where the beds were crawling

     soaked and furious with nappy

     newborn hair, sickness too---the old fan

     came around and turned his blades

     laundering the air.

She was there

     and kin to the rice fields

     toiling in contractions

     from summer fires

     and remembers nothing

     not even the nurse

     with the nameless hands.

Some beds keep crawling

     later

     when the porcelain tub was flooding

     plugged with soap and tears

     and mother's blue eyes, too.

The girl will die

     a child-woman, wife and soldier

     and refugee born mother

     sheltering silence for you,

     my daughter,

sleep Guineviere