November

nun meets me at the station, first month with carol and

dick reynolds. set the table. clean the kitchen. vacuum.

thank god she didn't ask me to take care of the children.

i dry dishes in the afternoon. watch her can apples from

the backyard, put them in the cellar dark to save for winter.

why is everything so quiet? why does the man come home

from school everyday at 3:30 and read the paper? why a

different casserole on the table every night and everyone

eats one portion and one portion only? why is there always

enough, but never too much. . .

try to understand this quiet, busy woman. is she content?

what are her reasons to can, to cook, to have three children

and a pregnant girl in her house? try to be close, lie

next to their quiet ticking bedroom and hear no sound,

night after night, except soft conversation. in the morning,

before light, i hear the baby's first cry. i picture her

in there with her bra unhooked and her heavy white breast

like cream on the cheek of that baby.

inside i wonder what she thinks, feels, who she is. and

every night it gets dark earlier, stays dark later. i don't

want to wake up smiling at cereal, dark overshadows snow,

and a fear comes into my cold heart: i am alone.

one afternoon, drying dishes, her cutting apples by the

sink, i ask her about college. i picture her so easily

in penny loafers, peck and peck collar, socks, and a plaid

skirt on her skinny still unchilded body. here she is today

with hips and breasts, a woman thirty who had taught school—

she must have some thoughts, some arguments and passions

hidden in this kitchen.

finally, she tells me her favorite book is the stranger.

we go and find it on the living room shelf. i wonder,

though she never says, what she understands about

being a stranger.

i meet her mother. all the same—they treat me all

the same: human. i am accepted, never question who

i am or why. never make me feel unwanted or afraid,

but always human love and never passion, never clutching

need, lopsided devouring want, never, not one minute,

extending those boundaries to enclose me. . .

oh soul,

i feel

cold and unused to such space as breath and eternity

around me.

so much room in silence. . .

how will my house ever run on silence, when in me there

is such noise, such hatred for peeling apples, canning,

and waking to feed baby, and alarm clocks in the soul, and

in the skin of baby, in the rind of oranges, apples, peels

in the garbage, and paper saved because it is cheaper to

save and wrap and wash and use everything again. and clean,

no screaming in that house, no tears, one helping at dinner,

and no lovemaking noises like broken squeaky beds. where is

that part i cannot touch no matter where or how i turn,

that part that wants to cry: SISTER, and make us touch. . .

she is kind. though i never understand such kindness,

cannot understand the inner heart of how and why she

loves: i am the stranger.

somewhere in the back of my mind, they are either fools

or the holy family, the way we all should be if we lived

in a perfect world and didn't have to strive to be loved,

but went about our quiet business, never raising our voices

above the rest, never questioning if we are loved, or

whether what we do is what we want to do, or worth it.

and if they are fools who don't have hearts or brains

or cords in their necks to speak, then why have they

asked for me? why am i in their house? why are they

doing this?

one night in my round black coat and leotards, i dress

up warm against the constellations, go down the snowy

block alone in time. i am only going to the drugstore,

but for some reason, the way i feel, pregnantly beautiful

walking into the bright fluorescent drugstore, it is

the most vivid night in my mind in the whole darkening

november.

Source: Natural Birth (Firebrand Books, 2000)