Substituting Dangers

Poem One: Giving Birth (for Anna and Amelia) If anything I talked too much. All the way through Your first pregnancy, And now your second child (a daughter of course) Threatens to surprise us with life. No longer alone with you Her shape interrupts The balance between The couch and the chair Between my speaking And your silences. These stories must be told: Stories of my body, Of losing control of it, Of the fear that sometimes Threatens all openings Including the one that Allows for my voice. But all through the hour She is contradicting me About to break out of you To stun us with a cry, An opinion, Nothing will stop her Coming out. I wonder whether I will recognize her Years later, Or whether it is really you who Strikes my curiosity; You so calm in your chair As if she will just slide out As if my stories hold her head steady Like the ancient hands of the midwife. Poem Two: The Fortune Teller Error Just because you predicted it would happen once and it did, doesn’t mean that you some special knowledge, like the power of a palm or a card or some neat little answer tucked away in the pockets of your gypsy science. Just because you predicted it would happen once and it did, doesn’t mean that it’s ever going to happen again. Because one day somebody’s going to discover that you’ve made an error the very worst kind of error. For I did gain weight that summer forty new pounds and despite three doctors’ negative predictions I gave birth to three healthy girls. But the doctors frowned and looked at me as if I had been the real gypsy all along. Instead of breasts I had given them each two shiny crystal balls, And my girls, looking into themselves at the ripe ages of six, eight and ten could already see themselves sagging and wrinkling And decided that no one would ever want them. Poem Three: A STRANGE DAY A blind opens to the introduction of light. All the animals you do not hear (because they are somewhere else not outside your window) Look for food, and you have nothing to offer them. The man sleeping next to you Is missing an ear and several other Parts which you swore you remembered He once owned. You share everything now. You are wearing his ear. Startled at how distorted you own Voice sounds through someone else’s lobe, You check to make sure that this is what You agreed to. He has three eyes now: Two sleep while the one which once Belonged to you, by its very nature Keeps a close watch on things. Poem Four: Negatives This one is like the last one Which is identical to the one before that: The floor is covered with rubble The bed stretches out to block the window The doors will not lock The stairs will not move. Outside, street lights have no shadows Cars go by in silence The man walking behind me says Don’t be afraid As if he knew this fear As if, he too, held his house keys Like small daggers. As if he too, Kept a scream on the edge of his lips. Someone is always, every minute, Taking a picture of me. It is more than a moment’s violation; It is to never know privacy again. Poem Five: HerStory We started together/ full of the same history. Our dreams were formed by the same kiss. A man waits at the other side of the mirror. But this touch is re-touch: When we ask permission to kiss each other We break through the code of lips. Your lips on mine are not the history we began with the history that keeps inviting us back. No, there is no word for this love in our mother’s memories and Your hands have no memory of my breasts. This night we have only a residual memory to guide us. I know what it is the world, yes, but also ourselves this time. Somewhere outside of this history we were born into, waits the memory of our love when it could not be denied.