Pieta

Before she is turned away
  for the last time in the moment
before the new world begins
  harrowing her like a field

and the sun and moon disappear
  and the stars and the houses
suddenly become illustrations
  in a book no longer to be

believed burning to ashes—
  before the earth beneath her
rises up through her body
  slowly, every green cell

yellowing in the aftermath—
  just before this begins and
it begins constantly over
  and over in the secret nucleus

of mothers quietly humming
  at every second continuously
she breathes the odor of honey,
  his hair still the odor of honey.