a poem with no title (for Milo)

You were conceived in the month of August
amongst the days of blue
& full skied afternoons
when Mars hung in the sky
like a red light bulb
turning my stomach with rinds
of oranges & peach pits


A force working within me
navigating a course among the galaxies
of a pulpy womb
& as the red planet receded into the sky it
cast a shadow across the moon
marked a starling within

we settled in amongst the rocks
&nested over the winter

You grew
thriving off potatoes and chocolates,
bananas and bread
swimming inside as I bundled you against
the cold of January, of February, of March
wrapping you in wool, down, cotton and skin
distending me so that you began to glow
a flash of light from my belly

In spring, your fingers and toes started to move downward
finding the exit to this crazy spaceship of a belly
you, our fruit, hung low on this mother tree,
a ripe fig, a juicy kumquat
your lovely long limbs pushing outward and in
and out once more, again

you bloomed on the 5th of May
and grew the solar system one more bit
grew the vegetable patch, and the orchard,
unearthed this whole garden
with your crazy fruit-
a star, an apple
a baby
oh you