hooks

pumping breastmilk
and writing poetry--

ain't it interesting,
the way life
gets its hooks in you?

Once, you were a 13-year-old
thin-gypsy heart.

Now:
the house and laundry
baby, dinner, dishes
got you
caught you
as you let the dog
out in the yard.
And all is drawn out from you.
Soon,
(if yr paying attention)
you see
that none of it--
not yr energy
not yr effort
not yr poetry
was ever yrs.

You are a conduit
and a merry gate of living.

that is yr immortality.