"oh antic God"
-- Lucille Clifton
oh antic God
return to me
my mother in her thirties
leaned across the front porch
the huge pillow of her breasts
pressing against the rail
summoning me in for bed.
I am almost the dead woman’s age times two.
I can barely recall her song
the scent of her hands
though her wild hair scratches my dreams
at night. return to me, oh Lord of then
and now, my mother’s calling,
her young voice humming my name.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46670/oh-antic-god
Return to Me Oh God of cold wars, return to me my father before he died, in a body you didn't let me remember; recall his warm smell, the soft brush of chest against my cheek, his heart pumping, his lungs filling, his strong arms around my back, pulling me in. If he sang to me, I don't know. And if he did, I can't hear how his voice sounded, or the song he chose to sing. So bring him back, oh God of mistakes, of radiation, of bombs and deserts and clouds, if only in my dreams. Give him the radiant flesh of an atomic angel so that he can hold me in his electric arms again.
Suggested soundtrack: James Taylor, “Fire and Rain”
