The Goose Girl, Blood of My Blood

Blood of My Blood

Part One, a Fairytale in Which the Mother Cuts her Finger

The blood passes from mother to daughter

recycling, cycling through veins

the water washes away the who

she was, how she sliced her own

finger to the bone

a cut unnecessary

to bleed for her loveliest love

the daughter she pushed forth

sixteen years prior

when there was color of pinks

still left in her cheeks

and her womb was apple-full

The daughter has menarche

in the mother's menopause

She loses her mother,

or so she thinks

She loses her power,

till she gains her own power

through the bones

of a horse,

which is also a type of mother

Part two, in Which the Poet's Mother Dies

Mother, you would not have cut your finger for me

or did I miss it when you did

and placed the stained cloth near my heart

It felt like it was either you or me

sinking down in the river

and that you pawed my head

to keep your own head lifted

You did not want to die

while I began to fancy the river-bed

and the crayfish scuttling the bottom

I began to weary of the struggle

when disease took you

from inside

You had taken on too much wine

and you sank down

though in my love

I tried to hoist you on my back

and crawl with you to shore

Part III, in Which My Daughter Breathes

How it aches this love

between mother and daughter

a deep womb-heart soreness

I will spare you the histrionics

of taking the boning knife

to my finger

I can feel you

were you a world away

as if an umbilicus

stretched across briny seas

I wish to tell you

of the unfaithfulness of others

both women and men

to be wary the one who rides

with you,

who carries envy inside

cyanide capsules

I wish to warn you

my loveliest love

that you will bleed more

before you die

When I am long dead

my face as bare

as the horse's head

hung on the gate

I will enter your dreams

and the dreams of your daughters

a bit of gauze in a river

floating up

to say I am still here

My trace of blood is in you

Lucy Simpson

Seattle

4/2008