After PJ Harvey’s “Down by the Water”
Tell me, child, how easy your body
lost meaning. You were dying butterflies
in my stomach that I didn’t want to kill
but it seemed easier to do. The flutter
slowly, stopping. Wings that collapsed
into a feeble corpse, relapsing into cocoon.
Nets cannot reach you now. No bouquet
of milkweed or marigold will do either.
Tell me, child, do you hear my prayer,
green frog, green frog, sitting in the water
swim back here and give me my daughter—