***** ***** *****
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| dobby under his brother fuzzbucket's lovingly applied rear naked choke. dobby is always the wronged one, hence that haunting little star face, pleading for rescue. he remains 90% angel and 10% house elf. |
For Dobby
The mucus sac of clammy grey
held you in its strong stone shade,
but who ponders the amniotic tint
of mirky placenta?
(One is more challenged by its slime than its hue --
except that there was iridescence:
a window in, and a mirror refusing entry,
both; a slick uterine shimmer
repeating reflection's echo
between attraction and repulsion.)
A feral mother's long hairs spun
the moisture of birth into unctuous yarn,
luxurious snowy strands coated
in melted sanguine maternal mystery,
the all serenaded by mewled complaint
as she gave up on you, the final kitten.
Liquid eyed, she hissed at last, and spat,
glared at us and at life's mess: her first four.
A wriggling membrane, half born,
flashing nebulae of twirling bright whites,
intimations of very pink punctuation, dotted
outrage, hasty hints of pearlized claws and
anxious padded feet.
He grabbed hold with a ruddy hand muscled with curved strengths
and gently pulled you from asphyxia, out of oxygen's debt
and the dark, dank chambers of the queen.
He set the globe of you on my rough teal towel
whose one swift rub broke the holy seal
of the tiny one she'd given up on.
The stars a forehead, a chest placket.
The pink whorls a pert nose, perfect ears,
a confusion of paw pads --
but most of you as pearly glaucous
as the original waxy package. Tucked
next a bulging teat, the warmth of dried
and silky siblings, you chose to climb
your mother's head instead --
and perched, drowned rat of a runt,
content, asleep, upon her silken nape,
blind, cold, and born.
© 2013 L. Ryan
