Fecundity

I suppose your definition of murder
Depends on your definition of life.

The white sign struck me, stilled me
Like a bomb out of the Sunday morning:
Baby killers.
I wanted to stop, bend over, and wretch on the quiet street -
a morning sickness of sorts.
I wanted to cry on the toes of their shoes.
The man held it. The woman stood beside him
Her thin white hair lying docile atop her head.

The yard swelled with the yellow of dandelions.
I loved to blow them – these bright things called weeds.
It felt like defying the definition I’d been given
Calling them beautiful.

Later I saw them in a light I ached to forget.
So human, these flowers unafraid to kill
The lilies and other sweet wonders
In their way across the green,
These flowers that became delicate and gray late in life.
I loved their old age, loved to see the yard like snow
In early summer, teeming with many armed angels
Ready to release their hungry spawn.

They make wine out of many things – dandelions for one,
Though probably a hundred white grape bellies popped
To make her glass of truth-
Be-told-I-didn’t-really-want-a-child.
I couldn’t have learned it from her alone.
She dressed me, fed me, told me when she’d had enough
And needed silence. She taught me to use my nails,
My teeth, my painted pretty smile.
She said get somewhere, do good.
She did not tell me much about good, do it she said,
And slinked back to her bedroom where she slept alone
In spite of the husband in the bed upstairs she didn’t love
Except for the comforts he gave to me.
My own father laid back on Saturdays to watch us
Running around the yard like wind struck pin wheels,
Growing, taking on this miracle of life.
Our skinned knees knocked the pavement.
He kissed our shins.
Our small hearts hurt with small defeats,
He squeezed us, he said, stay this good, always.
I wouldn’t have known without him,
wouldn’t have lived without her.
Indeed, it could have happened many other ways.

I thought to return a few days later and ask them
What is life,
And hadn’t we all been killers at least once?
What was life, if not something about knowing how to love?