i was born after death and before
i came along like an accident, just after my mother’s first miscarrage. i dropped into her life like a toy from a claw machine. who’d thought she’d win a prize, much less the one she wanted.
days turned into weeks and weeks into months. her belly grew disproportionate. her thin frame couldn’t restructure her body with how i was growing.
the doctors declared i was going to be premature; their idea was to let my mother stay pregnant until she had a natural birth. i was born a month late; christmas eve turned into late january. when going into labor, they brought an incubator and placed it at the end of her bed. the next day, i came, breaking her hips and almost ripping her in half: 8 pounds, 12 ounces; 24 inches long; 1987; poverty’s healthcare.
they had to circumcise my eyes.
the next baby died. my mother hadn’t realized she lost the child until it was floating beside the bloodied toilet paper. in a panic, like a hiccup, she reached the knob and pushed. the fetus was flushed like diarrhea. in a silent shock, she stepped away and left the room, sleeping for days. she could feel the new emptiness inside her, like a balloon deflating.
in the perspective of my mother
my womb is a cloth sack. multiple attempts at harboring life have been suffocated by the stained walls: the umbilical cords detach & grasp at what little resources exist. children fall from my uterus like ancient coins, deformed & faceless. they drop into a well & become ghosts who cry—mother, mother, why have you disposed of us. a profile comes from the shadow. the light absorbs into what should be the body & it stays void. it holds my hand; wet, puffy fingers slide up my arm. it reaches down my throat & i cough myself awake. the doctor tells me that the cancer has grown more than the stillborns. it thrives in the waste. i go home & give it a name.
daffodils
i sit on my porch, in a wooden chair split down the center by rain & moisture. there are two couches stacked in our side yard, diseased. we discarded them years ago after four of our babies died from parvo. they’re a statue of remembrance. the weather is refreshing. spring blooms like the yellow threading through thick weeds in the abandoned house’s yard, next door. it’s been cold for months. i smoke a cigarette. a breeze blows through my house, drying the floors. last night it rained & the humidity festered down in the splinters of the old hardwood. time shifts in my memories; the couches fall apart & rot—the fabric is torn & mold grows through them like an abandoned chernobyl. the cigarette burns & we’ll never remember the ashes. the dogs are buried in the backyard: we cover them with earth, their bodies like pieces of treasure. a lone cloud gets lost in the baby blue.
