in great brick buildings while underneath a tree in the yard a man stood moving an invisible bow across a wire hanger tucked under his chin. I strained to hear the music, but never did. Those days I tied diapers around the children’s necks, fed them pureed food while in the sunroom, behind the wire mesh, one girl spun on her toes, eyes wild animals with no escape skidding on blue cement. I made beds, folded sheets in tight angles and outside dark bodies of elms cut the sun to pieces. On visiting day, Olivia’s Aunt Jane came, touched her curls and cried, picked her up and sang nursery rhymes to the tune of the slow moving fan. The girl’s wide tongue protruded from her mouth, drool slipped down the front of her shirt, limbs hung like putty melting, captive in heart-dulled arms. In those days the moon came and the tall boy with mismatched chromosomes pointed his finger and said the one word he knew: mooon—wonder woven in that one syllable. Too late, too wild with night-longings, I eased him back to bed, put on the johnnie with straps and tied it to the rails. In the room across the hall I listened to thick, clotted stillness while I matched pajama tops and bottoms. My shift ended, the shackle of hours broke, and I left. The bus moved through the hackneyed city with billowy sighs as the door opened and closed, and streetlight fell like stale bread on my lap. Some died while I was away— one boy with a head swollen to Wonderland size plunged out of his chair, skin split, blood everywhere. Others slipped away quietly. Bone limbs twisted, they forgot the way to take in air, to lift eyelids, to sigh. But I returned, worked on, lifted arms, birthed heads through holes in shirts, led them down windowless halls, bathed feverish bodies in shallow, waist-high tubs, my own life measured in diapers, spilled milk, sweat. Summer came, the wards impossible, strangled with tongues of heat. I piled children in a wagon, pulled it over broken ground, sang them James Brown— Baby, baby, baby. Baby, baby, baby. I got the feeling. Comstock Review Award Issue Fall/Winter 2016
Poems by Judy Kaber