Big Sky Domestic

The neighbors are watching teevee again

& the pale blue of Montana morning

licks the long wall of the bedroom

silently, each block of gauzy cerulean

a panel in a widescreen comic that will last

until dawn bleaches it bare. Even

as I linger on the lip of sleep in this porch

rocker, in this quilted haven—the headboard

pardoned of splinters, the clouds growing

squally above the bureau—something new

& tender has stitched itself satisfied

inside of you. Your belly swells in time

with the pendulum of the longcase

my father made himself & my mother

must have known this eery glow

of stucco sky when she sewed

the pinwheels that tilt when we exhale

in unison. I have not known worry

since the last time Montana ether appeared

in panorama through the window

& I woke remembering our children

might someday soon grow beyond themselves

& into men: her body into his, or her body

into his arms, a concordance that more

than once has been mistaken for else:

a mountain silhouetted in the distance

or merely the wallpapered shadow

of a secret self who has yet to find

their way from the mercy of the womb.