There are these questions
arising as if out of nowhere,
warm-blooded and full as the wind’s
bodied passage— That morning,
for instance: when the mother,
oracular, slumped to the floor
after heaving handfuls of still-
green bananas into the air like missiles.
And the stalk from which they were gleaned
quivered against the doorframe, like a bow
with which arrows had just been launched.
What word from the mother-in-law
hung in the air preceding this
onslaught? My ear quickens
to the humming of bees in the backyard,
radio signals of sticky love multiplied
in each golden cell. Some things pass
without saying from woman to woman:
shreds of song, pennants
of explosive radiance.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.