moonheart

afterbirth

i’m eighty-three today, 
it feels so good 
in this soft body, my arms now 

covered in a plush of chestnut 
feathers, feathers, 
can you believe! 

the things they don’t tell you 
about childbirth, about losing 
your mother and father, about this secret 

sprout of plume you get, 
my bones been bird-tiny too a while now
so you know i fly in the evenings, 
titty-bottoms ppppppevery bit 
of wind they missed in their earthbound
daytime, some days i am a sparrow and some 

a falcon, some days i sp all afternoon touched
down in a bush with one hundred loves
and wewwwwwwwthat is my only purpose, to sing 

alongside my kin, i haven’t looked myself in the face
in half a century and denied her, i can remember
when i was young and thought i was old 

and knew only this, but no, it’s been a festival
of love here, all baby elephants flop-sloshing
the kiddie pool of my heart empty, and

when it’s empty it’s not empty but become 
the thirsty earth beneath it, 
and the meadow surrounding my heart rejoices 

in this big gulp, drooling a bit of libation 
back to me in a lazy river of mud that slicks my toes
melted chocolate-covered, 

i am an eighty-three-year-old snack 
and i am my favorite 
snack, i am so sweet and 

i am not embarrassed, 
i do not question the bees 
that buzz around my head a crown 

and travel now to my chocolate flower toes 
(earlier my granddaughter painted them 
to match this splash-fed meadow, 

this meadow an ode of goldenrod, 
you know those flowers that are many 
yellow trumpets birthing each other aplume 

into a brass band? you know, the trumpet’s oldest ancestor?
each day i walk a meadow thick with them and their old music,
that choir of trumpets tucking a low wail 

beneath whatever song the birds are making above them,
i have seen them music the bees into a horny frenzy,
nectar-high or sap-drunk or both, bliss-dizzy

in this party of sound) do you know i have laid in this
garden for days, hummingbird-high off my wings on
its nectar, chestbare, (it’s so hot now), soaking, shameless, 

i don’t give a fuck, each day i wake up 
beside a peach, a whole oak tree, a cloud, 
another meadow, yes michael 

is still here with me in his same body, gone full-feathered too,
and yes, we still do, our flock of feathers 
oft mistaken for the bees, 

we down their honey daily after all, 
and some nights i am an owl when i want to hear
the music of the mushrooms nudging their heads 

above ground overnight, or the music of 
the moment the mugwort sweats forth 
a chest of dewy gems, or the song of 

my great-grandbabies’ lashes sweeping moonlit
cheeks as their eyes flit around their heads, 
watching a beautiful dream flicker on the big screen 

of a long sleep, i can still slow-gallop after their brownbird legs
for a bit when they giggle away from me in a game of chase
or after some silly something involving a caterpillar 

in my silver pigtails, they know nothing of the police
or the prisons or the wars before besides the odd buddy
cop or war crap the neighbors may project against the clouds

at night, and i will show them soon enough the shapes and patterns,
the echo and the break, the mud, the blood, the kin, the stories,
the afterbirth, and they will be sure of the sound 

when the echo comes back, threatening, 
but for now they are petting the caterpillars, 
and know nothing of water for sale 

or air for sale or land for sale or a private river 
or safety for sale or a roof over their heads for sale 
or a wood they can’t wander, they know 

nothing of an apple tree unfit for public picking, 
and when i tell them the stories of what it was like, 
they ask me why, and how, and 

who would ever, they can’t 
imagine, what more could we need, 
what more could we possibly need?
​

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moonheart, aka kim mayo, is a neuroqueer writer, vocalist, composer, artist & filmmaker from many places. They’ve published poems in Pigeon Pages, lHooligan Magazine, & on their YouTube channel, where they sometimes set their poems to stop-motion videos. They are the recipient of a full fellowship as the teaching assistant for 2021’s In Surreal Life, facilitated by Shira Erlichman, &, recently completed Catapult’s 12-Month Poetry Generator Workshop with Angel Nafis, where they were supported in completing their first full-length collection of poems. they are currently dreaming, making, & tweeting too much from tongva land, aka los angeles. you can find them doing that @moonhearttt.