Caesura

My hand slipped

the surgeon said

but I promise

I wasn’t drunk.

I hated him.

I was so grateful

for the C-section

sideways scar,

and the one

under it.

~

To throw off the body

of the father

and mother

we pretend

we didn’t come

from anywhere.

Travel, for me,

is the outside

and the inside

aligned.

I am a stranger

and finally

everyone

knows it.

~

When you arrived

in Belfast

you saw no further

than my body.

I woke up

at all hours

to the idea

of form,

to the squalling

of your form.

No exile from

childhood no

nostalgia no

longing for home.

I couldn’t hate

anymore

what I made

from my own material.

~

Those years

fallen away

like the eggs

of the children

I wasn’t having

while caring for

my father.

Now I take

the baby’s foot

in my mouth,

spit out seven

tiny moons.

~

You who did not

ask to be born,

who live

at our mercy—

you owe us

nothing.

~

Your mother

nursed you

when you were

a baby too,

my father says.

You should

forgive her.

I look at him.

It’s not

a question

of forgiveness,

I say.

~

They said I

would

understand

my parents

when I had

a child

of my own.

And I did.

But I was

appalled

by what

I understood.

~

Standing in front

of Dubuffet’s Belfast

Mother

and Child—

in the primitive

scratches,

I see the admiration

of the father,

his jealousy

as he watches

his child

being nursed.

~

I would give

all this—

the careful lines,

the images

positioned just so—

to have a mother

whose biochemistry,

whose dopamine

receptors allowed her

to cherish me.

~

If I die

now,

someone

will always

think of me.

I must

be more careful

crossing the street.

~

The last time I was

in Rome

standing in front

of this Pietà,

I was eighteen,

a virgin.

Now I am not

interested

in the body

through

the ages of art—

I am the body.

~

I show

my month-old son

to my new colleague.

She stares fixedly

at his blond head.

Is overly polite.

The next day,

someone says,

You’re new here,

so it’s okay.

Her son killed

himself last year.

He was doing

better we all thought.

~

I am seven months

pregnant,

so big that

my brother says,

Let me open

that door for you.

Then: But after

you have that

baby you’re

on your own.

~

For the first time,

I don’t fear

other women,

their potential

cruelty. Or worse—

their desire

to be close

to me.

~

The baby is done

being fed

by his father

in the rented room

in the foreign

country I have

brought us to

for the sake

of my professional

advancement.

When the baby’s full,

he gets that

glazed, milk-

drunk look.

I can only get

any thinking done

while he is

dead dreaming.

I am told

the biological

purpose

for wakefulness

is to prepare

us for sleep.

~

The conservative

female politician

melts down

during the campaign.

Goes catatonic

with her handlers

before the debate.

Says, I miss my baby.

I need to be

with my baby—

the Downs kid,

her fifth.

~

My husband’s skin

cracks from

washing

his hands

ten times a day

after changing

the baby’s diaper.

My left breast throbs

from not feeding

the baby myself.

But I have

to write. And yes:

the room

is a cage.

~

I entertain

myself

by guessing

which parts

of me he will

come to despise.

~

The baby

is older.

There is

another baby

who is older.

I can again

afford

an interest

in history.

I sit in a chair,

reading

about Proust’s visit

to Venice

with his mother—

the fever of

their symbiosis.

You’ll never be lonely

again, someone says,

laughing. It’s when

they dream

that they

most cry out.