' Into the Womb of Air' by Candice Kelsey

 

The wind is the better lover and the better mother that’s right

I said the wind is the one who softens into a breeze when it’s tenderness you need the wind is the better lover and the better mother when it caresses the back of your neck and whispers  affirmations like you’ve never heard before the wind will let you know it’s present without fanfare or love-bombing or fear obligation and guilt the opposite of a covert narcissist husband             or borderline personality

 mother the wind can sway the lines                                                          into an ovation in bark-needle praise of                                                                     private victories and occasionally                                                                  pick up its step to rattle this world from                                                                                 sleep like  a 

fucking good lover                                                                                           like your fantasy mother to remind you that                                   your living body your very body you’ve been taught                                          to hate the thighs and belly and arms 

your mother                                                     marked with pen measure twice cut once so you could imagine taking up less space slicing away the heavy flesh that body must be celebrated before it’s swept away into the molecules that body must expand and rise to become the byproduct of the sun a child of uneven topography wind is the planet’s lover eternal my mother ideal so I turn my face     into it.