Wild Animals

by Shanna Germain


This is the husband whispering baby names
in his sleep:  Amanda, Andrea, Bobbi with an i.
Blankets belt my belly, my day-old waist.
The sheets are stained with bleach.
What is there to do but disentangle,
slip down the wilds of the hallway with
one hand out for spider webs?

Pink-painted corners are blighted with mold.
Underfoot, feral animals roam:  Short-eared
bunnies sing lullabies from shadowed
music boxes.  Foxes turn their ears to hunt
mice mobiles through the window panes.
In the empty crib, a fat-bellied squirrel eats
away the tag of a teddy bear.

Here are my hands holding the bars of bones
that keep things from falling.  My uterus
has gnawed its own insides to an empty cage.
Even the moon is without, a curled-up
sliver that leaks out stars.  Down the hall,
the husband's lips give birth to the end
of the alphabet:  Whitney, Yvonne, Zoey with a y.  
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