Grendel's Mother

It was not like the woman who had come out of hell,
Haired and furred in black earth, smelling of fire,
Her lover, green and brown in the green and brown
Field, his back a torn limb broken from the tree
Of her; ripped, the gesture of his uneven walking,
His refusal to turn to her who called to him,
Mouthing the ‘Or-, Or- of his name,
As if she were giving his wading away
From her through the tall grass a counter
Offer, argument—Me, turn, turn to me, turn to us,
And in that leaving gesture of a ripped limb,
He turned to her, to us, and even the ram
Who drove his skull into the rocks stopped
His thinking and watched the woman yanked
Back down into the earth’s black holler
And soil, and so was outside of thinking,
So furious. So furious, I was,
When my son called to me, called me out
Of heaven to come to the crag and corner store
Where it was that he was dying, *Mama,
I can’t breathe*;