Poetry

The Spoon Lullabies

By Janet MacFadyen

Make a mirror of a spoon and catch your image
on its head, mouth stretched open like a fish,
fun-house in the cereal bowl.
Line spoons up like fishing lures, someone
will be in love with them. Maybe I’ll
lick sugar crystals from their lips?
Poke spoons in my hair like knitting needles,
like my grandmother? Come, I will dole you out
some baby food, some soup, some stew.
A fork and spoon are married on the table, see
them runcible about, spoon with fork’s teeth
tuned to sweetness. In deep woods
someone is crooning up a honeymoon,
a crone ladles out the money and the baby
howls Do I belong here? Where is
my mummy?
Behind the carved oval door, a closet.
In the closet, a row of hooks and caught on one
a woman in a mesh of spoons that jangle
as she struggles. Tied to her breast
a cuttlefish. Around her feet a pool
of honey in which the half moon is reflected.
A gasp of recognition. Oh crone,

whose mirror is this? Whose face is this I see?
My dearest heart, my sweetness, first
it was mine, then your mother’s, now
it is yours — and baby is next.