Missing Tools

This is why women who’ve been hurt hoard the gauzy memories

in fields near their homes. They wait for the new moon

to bury those pains pell-mell near trees because trees

have strong hides that contain quantities of sap drumming

just beneath the surface, the way their own skin holds

volumes of lava inside. Their bodies are private chapels

filled with sinners, or their bodies have grown

into closets for storing lumps that reek like sponges of vinegar

when pried to the surface. Do the clouds in the sky

remind them of their own mothers? What kind of rain

do they need? Their mothers haven’t owned the battered goblets

their daughters hold, never had reason to shout

to the heavens: why did you let him get near me?

Their mothers were sold their own bag of goods, sent

home with samples of formula to feed their babies.

How can a woman be made to believe her own milk

is no good? These mothers could not teach their daughters

how to nurse, so how could they teach them to get out

of the way of the hailstones, how to get away

from the dented, broken cups their men were,

men whose fathers didn’t know how to teach them

to play fair and be nice and not hit. Sometimes

crowbars are the best tools to excise the lumps

creaking up just under their skin, or to fend off

more blows, those white sparks igniting

in their skulls from a fist or a knee battering them

like a crazed horny goat who’s come up to them

on the mountainside of a marriage that failed from the word go.