her volume doubling every month now, but still

raw and hard. She slaps the dough and it

crackles under her palm, sleek and

ferocious and still leashed, like her body, no

breasts rising like bubbles of air toward the

surface of the loaf. She greases the pan, she is

shaped, glazed, and at any moment goes

into the oven, to turn to that porous

warm substance, and then under the

knife to be sliced for the having, the tasting, and the

giving of life.

Bestiary

Nostrils flared, ears pricked,

our son asks me if people can mate with

animals. I say it hardly

ever happens. He frowns, fur and

skin and hooves and slits and pricks and

teeth and tails whirling in his brain.

You could do it, he says, not wanting the

world to be closed to him in any

form. We talk about elephants

and parakeets, until we are rolling on the

floor, laughing like hyenas. Too late,

I remember love—I backtrack

and try to slip it in, but that is

not what he means. Seven years old,

he is into hydraulics, pulleys, doors which

fly open in the side of the body,

entrances, exits. Flushed, panting,

hot for physics, he thinks about lynxes,

eagles, pythons, mosquitos, girls,

casting a glittering eye of use

over creation, wanting to know

exactly how the world was made to receive him.

The One Girl at the Boys’ Party

When I take our girl to the swimming party

I set her down among the boys. They tower and

bristle, she stands there smooth and sleek,

her math scores unfolding in the air around her.

They will strip to their suits, her body hard and

indivisible as a prime number,

they’ll plunge in the deep end, she’ll subtract

her height from ten feet, divide it into

hundreds of gallons of water, the numbers

bouncing in her mind like molecules of chlorine

in the bright blue pool. When they climb out,

her ponytail will hang its pencil lead

down her back, her narrow silk suit

with hamburgers and french fries printed on it

will glisten in the brilliant air, and they will

see her sweet face, solemn and

sealed, a factor of one, and she will

see their eyes, two each,

their legs, two each, and the curves of their sexes,

one each, and in her head she’ll be doing her

wild multiplying, as the drops

sparkle and fall to the power of a thousand from her body.

The Couple

On the way to the country, they fall asleep

in the back seat, those enemies,

rulers of separate countries, sister and

brother. Her big hard head

lolls near his narrow oval skull

until they are crown to crown, brown

hair mingling like velvet. Mouths

open, the rosebud and her cupid’s bow,

they dream against each other, her calm

almond eyes and his round blue eyes

closed, quivering like trout. Their toes

touching opposite doors, their hands in