Diptych: Parturiency
1.
a baby is barely coagulated
but it is already full of data
All I have left of my first baby is a blood / stained mattress All I have of my second is / the pathologist’s report She was / 6 x 5 x 0.8 cm in aggregate She / was lost in fragments of pinkish-tan / soft tissue in acutely inflamed and focally / necrotic decidua What is / what are / edematous avascular villi was it bad that they were / large She was possibly / a mole but / the cytogenetic studies showed / 46, XX, der(13)t(1;13)(q25;q32) / This data translated means / she was unbalanced She was / translocated / This data is the likely cause / of her loss Why did no one warn / me that genetic testing / would identify her sex / would tell us she was / she was / she
*
so I feed him the soft part of my intestines
which still holds the remainder of another part of me.
I am on the floor/ again / I am behind the bed I am pressing / my face into the carpet I would dig / a hole if I could but there is / no dirt I make / animal noises / wails groans / monstrous sobs Some animal piece of my brain / forces my body far away from / the baby into the dirt that is carpet into / where I can’t hurt / him My pain is animal The boy is / animal and wailing in the nursery / He doesn’t nurse He arches / the back of his head against / the mattress even after / I put him down I would feed / him anything anything / from my body full / to bursting with milk
*
From the total darkness that secretes
bile and oil and gases, from the total darkness of tiny pixels
and demons, hair is pulled out, hair that shines in the night.
When the baby crowned I was on my hands and knees There was nowhere to / be but on my hands and knees She / crowned and my vagina was / fire My legs straightened my ass / rose high in the air like invisible / strings were pulling it towards the ceiling / My body tried to escape my / body The umbilical cord dangled / hitting my fire clit until / somebody rolled me over The cord pulsed pumped / blood into the girl while I held her/ against my chest her crown shiny / with blood
2.
No star in the universe can match your gravity.
Baby black hole I see so little of how the universe goes but if I understand it correctly even a little you can’t know when you get attached and begin to orbit its dying burning center but you will spin until you enter the event horizon and then you will never remember not being this way forever stretched held and holding
*
I will kill her
with nature
a knife is born with no handler
The rehearsal of the speech to give my son the moment I had a quiet moment between us was an apology for the capacity of his brain to work against him all scissors teeth snot snapped bones and loss fashioned into rot and hammers laying at his feet patient to be used courtesy of the family he would soon love and then I smelled his skin and he was not dead and we sat banking our worry each warming the other with his new heat
*
in fact, my love for you is older than you are,
older than even the valves of your nonexistent eyes
and heart, for millions of years, millions of millions
We are of course ancient and struggling this salt and pollen pitching about in the water and blood that we loved before we knew the word but there are days before we knew you when we hoped to meet your older sister who never turned into your older sister but got stuck with the mechanism junked and frozen and I sat in a glaring white room while your mother slept through a uterine detailing finally waking relieved not to see me not to have to endure my touch after having been touched so thoroughly relieved for the theft of the dead thing inside her
***
a baby is barely coagulated
but it is already full of data
All I have left of my first baby is a blood / stained mattress All I have of my second is / the pathologist’s report She was / 6 x 5 x 0.8 cm in aggregate She / was lost in fragments of pinkish-tan / soft tissue in acutely inflamed and focally / necrotic decidua What is / what are / edematous avascular villi was it bad that they were / large She was possibly / a mole but / the cytogenetic studies showed / 46, XX, der(13)t(1;13)(q25;q32) / This data translated means / she was unbalanced She was / translocated / This data is the likely cause / of her loss Why did no one warn / me that genetic testing / would identify her sex / would tell us she was / she was / she
*
so I feed him the soft part of my intestines
which still holds the remainder of another part of me.
I am on the floor/ again / I am behind the bed I am pressing / my face into the carpet I would dig / a hole if I could but there is / no dirt I make / animal noises / wails groans / monstrous sobs Some animal piece of my brain / forces my body far away from / the baby into the dirt that is carpet into / where I can’t hurt / him My pain is animal The boy is / animal and wailing in the nursery / He doesn’t nurse He arches / the back of his head against / the mattress even after / I put him down I would feed / him anything anything / from my body full / to bursting with milk
*
From the total darkness that secretes
bile and oil and gases, from the total darkness of tiny pixels
and demons, hair is pulled out, hair that shines in the night.
When the baby crowned I was on my hands and knees There was nowhere to / be but on my hands and knees She / crowned and my vagina was / fire My legs straightened my ass / rose high in the air like invisible / strings were pulling it towards the ceiling / My body tried to escape my / body The umbilical cord dangled / hitting my fire clit until / somebody rolled me over The cord pulsed pumped / blood into the girl while I held her/ against my chest her crown shiny / with blood
2.
No star in the universe can match your gravity.
Baby black hole I see so little of how the universe goes but if I understand it correctly even a little you can’t know when you get attached and begin to orbit its dying burning center but you will spin until you enter the event horizon and then you will never remember not being this way forever stretched held and holding
*
I will kill her
with nature
a knife is born with no handler
The rehearsal of the speech to give my son the moment I had a quiet moment between us was an apology for the capacity of his brain to work against him all scissors teeth snot snapped bones and loss fashioned into rot and hammers laying at his feet patient to be used courtesy of the family he would soon love and then I smelled his skin and he was not dead and we sat banking our worry each warming the other with his new heat
*
in fact, my love for you is older than you are,
older than even the valves of your nonexistent eyes
and heart, for millions of years, millions of millions
We are of course ancient and struggling this salt and pollen pitching about in the water and blood that we loved before we knew the word but there are days before we knew you when we hoped to meet your older sister who never turned into your older sister but got stuck with the mechanism junked and frozen and I sat in a glaring white room while your mother slept through a uterine detailing finally waking relieved not to see me not to have to endure my touch after having been touched so thoroughly relieved for the theft of the dead thing inside her
***