My daughter was born at 4:34 am,
the same minute I was born
26 years,
one month,
and 26 days before.
I felt the warm, slippery crown of her skull
with my fingers
in the last moments we were one being,
and then she spilled out of me
the way something spills from a can
when the suction is broken.
She did not cry,
did not make one small sound,
but her arms flew to the air,
and I thought,
how wonderful it would be if we could all remember
that first instance of ecstatic release
having only known darkness,
a folded existence.
She was handed to me
like a tea set wrapped in a sweatshirt,
mindfully, delicately,
and her placement in my arms
came with the recognition
that my life now had a before
and an after.
There was no rush of love,
as they say,
just the momentous peace
in having met this stranger
who I had loved without knowing
from the moment she left her father
in frantic search
of her biological counterpart,
her soul joining itself.
I remember tiptoeing downstairs
at 8 years old
and watching Titanic with my parents
when I couldn’t sleep.
I remember
the acrid taste of the popcorn
that I left in the microwave too long,
the cocoon of my parents love
and our old green sofa.
And yet the details of my daughter’s birth,
the hours of exquisite pain
and visceral longing,
my memory has failed to keep.
My heart remembers
what my brain does not.
My body holds the blood memory of her.
Sep 10, 2020
Sep 10, 2020 at 11:36 AM UTC
There is a list of things I know I will forget.
The list is ever growing.
The list is endless.
The size and shape of her finger nails,
the pillowiness of the tops of her feet.
How she looks up at me from a tangle of blankets
as I kiss my hand and bring it to her forehead,
repeating the phrase, I love you,
despite its inadequacy.
The way she appraises every stone in the gravel driveway
as if it were a planet of its own.
A trip we took to the beach
when she ran her fingers through sand for the first time.
So many first times.
If I weren’t her mother
I would choose to be the wrinkle in her elbow
or the gap between her teeth.
I would settle for a bird
that crosses the sky above her, igniting
if only for the briefest of moments,
something like pure wonder.
What I will remember is the endless love.
Sep 10, 2020
Sep 10, 2020 at 11:33 AM UTC
In her purple snowsuit, a child kneels in a foot of fresh powder,
carefully shaping a snowball in her purple mittened hands.
See the world through her eyes.
Each snowflake a white dream.
Tucked inside a snow globe,
atop a frozen cotton blanket
neatly placed on the lawn while you were asleep,
embedded with microscopic diamonds
that disappear when you single them out with curious eyes.
It is important that you get the shape of the snowball right,
so take your time
and mold it between your palms like a ball of clay.
It is important
because the snowball can be anything you want it to be,
like the embryo of a snowman.
Ammo to use in a long anticipated battle
or the start of a fortress.
A snow cone, if you can sneak maple syrup from inside.
Branches hang low with their sacred white burden.
The world has become black and white.
And then a cardinal dips into view.
Dashing above a white sea
towards the comfort of an unseen nest,
nearby perhaps, or miles distant.
For a moment
the only color you know is red
and nothing was ever so beautiful.
The world is endless beauty.
Feb 18, 2019
Feb 18, 2019 at 5:55 PM UTC
In the spaces between, I love you best.
The vastness between particles, the distances.
What a gift it would be to unlearn time
as it drips slowly from a broken faucet.
This morning I performed the ritual of your 4am diaper change
and when you smiled up at me
I thought of a garden growing inside of you,
the bloom of a hundred crocuses and lupines and marigolds
and the twisting of Swedish vines
and tomatoes beginning to turn red.
Someday I will make your bed with fresh sheets
when you come home for Thanksgiving,
I will stock our fridge with your favorite foods
and make sure the house is clean.
I will try to be the perfect hostess for you
like I once was.
My moon and back.
Jan 10, 2019
Jan 10, 2019 at 7:56 PM UTC
I didn't know you were unhappy.
Somewhere
when the dishes sat drying in their rack
and the baby fell asleep,
like the rats neglected in their cage
I overlooked it.
Wrapped in weighted folds
of sleep deprivation,
headlights not yet through the fog.
Jan 5, 2019
Jan 5, 2019 at 1:27 PM UTC
One month from today could be
your birthday.
In one month we could meet each other
for the first time.
Maybe in one month
I will be on all fours like an animal
and I’ll scream you into the world
and you’ll stop being just a dream.
You are a product of me,
within me.
You are mine
You are not mine
You will always be mine.
Through ripened flesh
and viscera you will unfold,
purple and milky,
bursting through a darkness,
limbs released into your father’s arms,
squeezed and wrinkled,
bright with pain,
having to relearn what it means
to be alive.
Sep 6, 2018
Sep 6, 2018 at 10:45 AM UTC
Strangers at the bar
I polish glasses with care
No one knows my name
Aug 9, 2018
Aug 9, 2018 at 2:50 PM UTC
Keep an eye out for mountain lions
is the latest,
down by the pond where the children catch snakes
and what about your husband quitting his job?
He hated it and what about what you hate?
Roommate smoking ******* cigarettes inside, half the night coughing
through paper thin walls
you can’t even ********** in peace.
Peace is a friend you have lost touch with because you are too busy.
Two jobs.
Feet still sore when you get up four times a night to ***
The new place doesn’t allow pets.
Or smoking.
The rats still make you smile
there’s always the rats.
And feeling like a lava lamp when the baby moves.
Still alive for now.
Why cry?
No one can hear you but the baby probably can.
Listen to the wind in the aspens instead.
Beautifully sad sound.
Already their color is changing
you
have always been changing
and still you are the little girl who used to leave messages for her cat on an answering machine.
That poor cat died a long time ago.
You’ve missed every cat who has died.
What if your baby dies?
Sometimes
your ******* leak.
THAT is a sign of life.
Life means you have to do another load of laundry.
Separating whites and colors is no longer necessary.
You haven’t heard from your husband today.
He says he’s having a lot of fun at his new restaurant.
Hope so
you’re not bitter
but how can you laugh with him in bed if he works nights?
***** it.
One glass of red wine.
Go on lots of walks.
Drink lots of water.
Soon your baby will be born.
Aug 9, 2018
Aug 9, 2018 at 2:41 PM UTC
I am eleven, a child
of recent divorce.
(I do know what this means and I do not)
Outside the exotic bird store
I sit with my father and sisters,
savouring the dewy air of a summer night,
the melting sugar on my tongue.
Instinctively
I turn my head towards the smell of tobacco
and find myself facing the group of teenagers
casually huddled outside a radioshack.
Elegant blue smoke coils and twists above their heads
and becomes a cloud around them
like an idea that comes in focus
for the moment before it slips into the ether of subconscious.
I am standing with them
then.
Ice cream cone replaced by cigarette
careful braids replaced by loose ponytail.
A freedom I have never felt before.
And the terror of the realization
that I cannot be caught
not really
not anymore.
I did not know exhilaration and sadness
could be felt together and it occurs to me
as it will in moments such as these,
that language cannot always be used to untangle a feeling.
Aug 6, 2018
Aug 6, 2018 at 8:35 PM UTC
To my little one who pushes me from the inside out:
because of you
my eyes see new colors.
Funny how
there are perhaps as many nuances of love
as there are shades of green in a summer forest
and there is only the word “love.”
Sadness too.
Like the sadness of giving up
something you didn’t know you wanted.
That was you.
Was you.
You occupy me.
Within and without.
My feet and my heart ache.
I watch how people's’ eyes are drawn to my stomach.
Celebrating roundness
where there was once flatness
and that was once celebrated
is also a funny thing.
I do want to laugh and it is easy to.
Crying is also easy.
Sometimes they are indistinguishable
or
one becomes the other.
Becoming.
If that is what I am doing
how is it different
from what I have been doing my whole life?
Aug 6, 2018
Aug 6, 2018 at 8:07 PM UTC