She's a happenstance mistake,
a healthy baby born on Independence Day.
Four days of work- for all it is worth,
nights of hearty cries
the soundtrack to a sudden, upside down life.
The needle pulling history
repeating different color threads-
patches of cloth, events and mistakes
patterns running through time,
past always stitched together.
I'm wondering where you came from,
drawing memories from the back of my mind.
I can only make up stories
as you sit in solitude
curving glass, covered in dust.
The alleyways are empty at this hour.
Only the vagrants, ******* their cigarettes, and strutting tom cats roam.
Nights drenched in orange glow-
street lamps guide me as
I wander the streets alone.
Is this the life I wanted?
Is this just how things have happened?
This poem comes from an in-class exercise.
The title is the county that you were born in.
The first stanza had to be something to do with your mother. Seeing as the title is my birth place, I referenced my birthday quite literally.
The second stanza had to be about something we read yesterday. Many of my classes focus on history and the events that tie together many people and places.
The third stanza was about an object in our room. I have these glass pitchers from a garage sale that I don't know the history behind.
The fourth stanza had to use our father's name. Not addressing him, necessarily, but using the name. My dad is named Tom, so there, tom cat.
The ending had to tie everything together using only two lines, so I chose questions.
Looking back over the poem I realized that it sounded very eerie, almost referencing a postpartum depression or possibly still birth. The questions at the end and the "happenstance mistake" in the first stanza would definitely imply postpartum depression.. but the third stanza I realized sound something like an urn!
I would like to expand on this poem and possibly tie some of the themes into my real family's stories. My grandmother had her first child out of wedlock at a time when that was NOT okay. Later on in her life she gave birth to a stillborn baby. My mom got pregnant with me by mistake, she was 30 and didn't plan on having kids but HERE I AM.
This idea of generational, historical ties and/or the idea of children, loss, regret, etc. could go somewhere.