Poem Beginning & Ending with My Birth

My mother says I sure was heaven-sent

& determined on making her life hell—

cried every afternoon, & not one spell

worked. She rocked, she sang, made all the attempts

of  too-young mothers. Don’t they say the scent

of  a mother’s neck, & her voice, soothe well?

The familiar heartbeat’s supposed to tell

the story of the womb. Not how it went.

Until one day she put me in a chair

with a newspaper to tear out & toss

into a water bucket. Algebra

or God happened (quiet, I tore), & where

does it end? She recognized it, this loss,

she swears, the morning I was born. She saw.

She swears the morning I was born she saw

the dishes stacked, though the news wasn’t dry.

The war brought the dead, the mothers the cries

of newborns. The militias made the laws:

cross here, here stop, here knock, here dance, here draw

a card—spades or hearts? Your fate does not lie

in your hands or the Almighty’s. The eye

of the gun is multi-pupiled. Blah blah

went the angels, though they watched over us,

didn’t they? Or did we come to our aid?

Some smoked. Where’s the crossword? asked the grandpas.

Everyone smoked, blamed each other, the bus,

& every pregnant woman was afraid

she’d soon be in labor, all back & jaws.

I’d soon be in labor, all back & jaws,

though less after the epidural. God

bless the anesthesiologist! No rod

of in pain you will, your unholy laws.

Stab my spine painless or I’ll dig my claws

into your jugular. Don’t you applaud

the sacrifice of mothers, don’t you God

them. Altars are for the dead, & rage gnaws

at us: we’re badass, & what we want? We

know. & we don’t know. None of your business.

Both times I prayed for a girl, & intent

birthed them, as it did my mother & me;

we’re our own expulsion—& genesis,

moments later. We begin our descent.

Moments later, we began our descent

down the building stairs. There was no shelter;

we hid in the school next door. We entered,

played with the older kids, who sometimes lent

us their Risk game set. Confused, we still went

with it. We loved the colors, & better,

the dice. We rolled. Hunched into our laughter,

we counted losses. My mother’s lament

came not from missiles, but from sudden news

of her brother’s death. He, countries away,

engineer, hit his head on the cement.

She’d seen him in a dream. How does God choose

when to show us, when to keep us at bay?

She saw her brother’s face, saw herself  bent.

She saw her brother’s face. We saw her bent

over his photo, or a soapy plate.

Heard her light her last cigarette so late

it was early. Morning, between the rent

& electricity, to what extent

does one have time to mourn? Who derails fate,

peace? The only train I’d seen didn’t wait—

abandoned in the city grass, content

in the apocalypse. I spent most days

on the balcony: next door, the immense

emptiness of the archbishopric called.

I imagined running in the always

of its sun-flood until mother’s voice pressed.

I tied my blue laces, postponed my awe.

I tied my blue laces, & to my awe,

it never worked. I loved September best:

without fail, rain—the clear illusionist—

fell on the first day of school, always brought

the earth with it: the soil’s fragrance rose raw

even in the alley. We chewed fast, lest

our mom find out what we’d bought with the rest

of our money. Remember? The hurrah

as we quickly ate the cake-filled brioche?

& the rotary phone? & my love for

new stationery, my fear of chamois

shoes? Tights torn, soaked, too whole-hearted, too gauche,

too rushed. I tried to hide it all before

we walked in, but tying my shoes, she saw.

I walked in & she tied my shoes. She saw

the dirt, & sometimes shouted. But she let

me find & lose my Edens, alphabet

after alphabet. When boredom would gnaw,

she said, Read the dictionary. No flaw

in scarcity, if the mind wills. Duet

of  languages, thank you. Thank you, cassette,

& TV ads—I memorized them all.

Today she called, said her mother isn’t

dying. Perhaps she should? Didn’t she wolf

most her days? Enough. She can’t invent

excuses for her again. She wasn’t

kind. She dreaded the visit, thinking of

how the whole day would go. & still she went.

How the whole day would go, & how it went

depended on the inflatable boat,

the cold river, the warm mountain, its coat

of marguerites, & our careful descent

into the summer morning. We’d no tent,

too young to camp, happy to be remote

from parents & the city. An old goat

grazed, & it strangely lightened my torment,

my fear of the wild. Then you turned—did you?

In a lost diary, a girl writes this;

We walked off, briefly, but alone at least.

I can’t know it as well as she, that kiss.

She tells it like an oracle, a priest.

She tells this like an oracle, a priest:

I see you. You’ll be a writer, one day.

for you always. A mother’s words, like yeast,

make the dreams rise. She said this as I ate,

then turned to her pot. The kitchen was so

full of sun that grains of dust danced supreme.

Is this how we dive straight into our fate?

What we must summon when we’re filled with no,

when we doubt, when we say, Perhaps a dream?

When we doubt, when we say, Perhaps a dream,

our grandma doesn’t blink. We know her eye

is plastic—the spare one in a box, high

on top of the closet. & in the gleam

of the afternoon, inside the thick cream

of her voice, we listen: Jesus walked by

her bed & said nothing. She wonders why,

though they who behold his face are redeemed.

& so we spent nights praying for someone

biblical to arrive, like a rock star.

We hummed, waited. No one came to visit.

Our grandmother told stories & was gone.

She returns when we doubt the past, the far,

when we laugh, joke, & make nothing of it.

When we laugh, joke, & make nothing of it,

the unseen laughs more. Here’s mom with photos

we take & no longer print. When she shows

my brothers & me, opens the closet,

takes the albums out, her eyes, they soften,

they long to wake something in us that knows.

Look how you cry, how you smile, how you close

you inside your little daughter. If peace

came, it didn’t linger. & is it true,

what she recalls, what I recall, what we?

She insists it’s real. The truth. Every piece.

She insists it’s real, the truth, every piece,

though I don’t remember myself this tense.

My daughter, my lovely wreck, my immense,

forgive me this day my daily. Release

me not from anger, from error, but please

know trains run in me, & many dead. Sense

sometimes deserts me. Fogged, fickle, my lens.

Hallowed be thy name. Cedar-like, thy trees.

Thy kingdom come. Thy kingdom come, though don’t

forget palms who raised you to the window

so you could see the rain. Who heard your scream

first. I sound desperate because I am. Won’t

lie. Won’t stop. O dear magnificent glow,

don’t you see your mother, lonely, supreme?

Don’t you see us mothers, lonely, supreme?

—Prophecies never prevented murder.

What use to scribble over a border?

—Mistook rioting for writing. Extreme

much? What do you fear most, in the grand scheme

of things?—Tyranny of stories. Ardor.

Mistook backwash for: laundry, leftover.

Eden for a dictatorial regime.

Tonight the cities to be bombed will be

bombed. The mothers will die little deaths. More

than anything, they’ll long for their coffins

on shoulders. Is worship mutual, free?

Doesn’t matter, does it? Who’s keeping score?

We’re birthing (what difference?) sinners, prophets.

We’re birthing (what difference?) sinners, prophets,

daughters of war & dance cities. Heaven

opens its gates at birth, she says. Seven

skies. What are we without longing. Comets,

aluminum foil in our hair. Solace

comes & goes. I wake. Was it to lessen

my angst she came in a dream? I reckoned

there’d be crying. There was. In the province

of love & anger, in kitchens, in fields

of fitted sheets, she told & she shouted,

mainly to Mary. O mother, she meant

what she said. & though she knows nothing shields,

though in her mad devotion she doubted,

my mother says I sure was heaven-sent.

My mother says I sure was heaven-sent.

She swears the morning I was born she saw

she’d soon be in labor, all back & jaws.

Moments later, I began my descent.

She saw my brother’s face, saw herself bent,

tying his blue laces, & to her awe,

my brother walked in. She tied his shoe. Saw

how the whole day would go, & so it went.

She tells this like an oracle, a priest.

When we doubt, when we say, Perhaps a dream,

when we laugh, joke, & make nothing of it,

she insists it’s real. The truth. Every piece.

Don’t you see us mothers, lonely, supreme?

We’re birthing (what difference?) sinners, prophets.