Mother and Son, Kazakhstan

Men planted mushrooms in our sky,

she says, with much white boiling

of thunder-and seeds, many seeds

that rained down here and here and here

and, after time, grew up into children.

This one, she says, her sleeves rolled

elbow-high for the work of holding him.

Watch the wrinkled linen of her face

and know the work is hard. A face

and a face, his a gouge of bone

under skin wrenched tight as an outgrown

shirt, the buttons splayed to breaking.

Men came like fire and left like smoke,

she says, shifting his melon-heavy head.

What he lacks fills her arms

to overflowing, how he mouths a gaping

story over and over, the same nuclear

vowel rolling out only to curve back in.

Note her red kerchief, the snowdrift

in her hair. If you can, watch his eyes

like dark searchlights crossing, crossing.

This is a test. This is only a test.