Six Reasons I Can't Answer the Door for Him at 3 in the Morning
By Sarah Carson
The last man here wanted
what could not be taken:
My girl, he'd say,
my baby.
The narrow of his eyes
scattered mice in the walls.
The man before him
hid cans in high cabinets.
Neighbors slipped notes through
the breezeway:
Just yell help,
they said.
Police are quick
here—
here as in
not someplace else.
Then there's Brother,
who can't come home at Christmas.
The girl he swears he doesn't know
in my same sweatshirt
when they pull her
from the creek.
In the city
where we were born,
bullets crawl blocks
like brush fire,
spent casings
end up in water.
Police come
to the door,
ask for men
who've said our names.
Now—tucked between
my hip bone & my ribcage—
I'm growing
another body.
The dark cloud
of the ultrasound
says she'll be
a girl like me.
If we believe
what God says
about Adam's
rib bone,
about his
finger-pointing,
we know
it falls to girls
to pass the
warning:
There are men
who sleep &
men who can't and
it's up to us
to know
the difference.
It's up to us
to know
a door is also
a thing that opens,
even a deadbolt is still
a kind of hope.
Copyright Credit: Sarah Carson, "Six Reasons I Can't Answer the Door for Him at 3 in the Morning" from How to Baptize a Child in Flint, Michigan. Copyright © 2022 by Sarah Carson. Reprinted by permission of Persea Books, www.perseabooks.com.
Source: How to Baptize a Child in Flint, Michigan (Persea Books, 2022)