I, Eleanor

I, Eleanor, give birth to a forest,
chipmunks and cicadas, antelope and fur
spilling from the white blades of my thighs
into red soreness, brash air.
Leaves are my eyes,
sunlight slashes my mind,
and all that I birth
will come back singing again,
the fox and the sycamore, chaffinch and wren.
This ground is pulled down, fretted and spent,
a toad in its brown paper skin
feeds at my breast, belching
kin
unto kin, a shout of insects
travelling weird
into loneliness.

I, Eleanor, give birth to a forest,
so the sky
kills me for my acorns,
for these windy hairs.
My
breasts, reduced size,
arms, legs,
head, scurrying
from daytime
to the mating ground:
a dead incubate.