Orange tabby in the foxglove.
Four beets in a bag.
The poppy’s blocky skeleton.
A net full of mulberries,
            sweetest
                        at the point
                        they let go.

Untie
the soft knots
of the crochet.
Begin again.
Look,
there’s a lily.
Look,
there’s another one.

She was for masturbation,
for getting to know yourself,
sexually. She caressed
her leg as she spoke. She sensed

unresolved conflict, Oedipal
strivings. Her own daughter,
she said, would walk
naked in her bra, try to take
her place on bed. This was nothing

to cry about. Every girl
wanted what mother had, wanted
her mother. She had my parents
in analysis and group. I would hear

her muffled name
through their door, as I lay
in bed, making
the first tentative gestures
toward myself, touching
thighs, hair. A woman

might do this with waxed
fruit, the back
of a hairbrush, a long
silver object borrowed
from a husband. One inserted the walking
stick, spilled

herself, fucked
its antique head. Fucked
the monogrammed head
of the father. 
Left to her own

devices, one straddled
a vacuum cleaner, enticed
a puppy, led
the warm animal tongue
to her lap. Long ago
I imagined myself
conceived in masturbation.
My father handing
the great white seed
to my mother, who took it
on her fingertip,
and placed it delicately
inside her body.

We cannot help but be students 
of our fathers’ disciplines, 

                       mine an avid disciple 
                       of scripture and royalty. 

What else can I confess? 
That I was a child? I carved myself 

                       into the civil shape of a knife. 
                       Pared until only the edge remained. 

I killed things because I could. 
Magnifying glass and the sun 

                       and the silent crawling things that 
                       could not fight back. 

That had no choice but to only 
hope for mercy. Unable themselves 

                       to beg. I confess. I was desperate 
                       to know that I was not alone. Every day 

we are made once more in the image of God. 
Every day God asks, Cruelty again? 

                       And every day we say, Oh Lord of Heaven, 
                       please, yes, yes. Cruelty again.