Fear the Natural World
Sugar makes for big
Babies, the midwife warned me
I didn't listen
But I was promised
I could hold my placenta
Is it in the trash
A hospital room
Full of family
and I'm empty now
A tongue tied baby
On my breast and I'll never
Be alone again
Movies about kidnapped
children make me feel like
I’m underwater
Killing pedophiles
In my sleep: the shoulder the
Shoulder blade the knife
A ransom note left
For a boy poached from his crib
Then dropped from the window
Monitor on mute
We don’t hear your sudden death
Our doctor calls common
You’re out of your crib
In the kitchen chemicals
Poisoned while we sleep
Window blinds open
Cord hanging just low enough
For your tender neck
Improperly dressed
In short sleeves and without socks
You quietly freeze
Anxiously dressed in
Long sleeves and an undershirt
You boil overnight
My epidural:
It took the doctor three tries
to get it done right
Bleaching the tub without
gloves. I clean until I
Feel like a mother
You’re crushed under a
Dresser I’ve asked your father
To anchor for months
Wait do you hear that
I hear something. Just stay on
The phone while I look
My throat is closing
There are bugs under my skin
Say you believe me
How much of your brain
Is fruit from the poison tree—
That which you won’t grow out of.
Fear the Spoiler Alert
Buying groceries
Other shoppers are thinking
I’ll kill my baby
Playing in the park
Everyone is worrying
I’ll kill my baby
Walking down the street
Everyone thinks I want to
Murder my baby
My therapist is
Taking notes and plotting
To save my baby
The doctor’s office:
The nurses stare and whisper
She’ll kill her baby
Reading these poems
Everyone thinks I want to
Murder my baby
When he is at work
My husband wonders if I
Might kill our baby
Whenever you cry
It must be because mommies
Will kill their babies
And themselves eventually
Nonna
One day you’ll ask me where your grandmother is and I’ll tell you for her birthday when
you were just a few months old, she had us on a restaurant patio, at a table not round
enough for all of our chairs, against a bar and adjacent a live ’70s cover band,
surrounded by greasy old people grinding and sloshing frozen margaritas out their
plastic cups. I’ll tell you she made her mouth a hard line to keep from smacking me
because it is her birthday goddamnit so knock it off. I’ll tell you how her boyfriend made
the reservation, and the way he flirted with the waitress, who kept saying he’s really
somethin else. How they both worked at this restaurant—how she left a better job at
home for this. For a man who later calls her a sneaky bitch when texting a friend and
stupid for something she did in the kitchen, I can’t remember. How grateful I was for
sympathetic strangers on the airplane when the whole way back you’d cry unless I
nursed you. There was a time I would abuse anybody else to feel better but I’ve since
gotten that out of my system. One day you’ll ask me where your grandmother is and I’ll
tell you Florida.
Fear, The Culture
While men-poets everywhere else are raping, a white man-poet steps to the mic at a
reading and says: If the subculture can’t be better than the culture . . . and he is right.
Then what the fuck are we doing. Woman-poets post ALL MEN MUST DIE and we’re
supposed to believe they don’t mean it. I wish they would, until I remember my son and
read differently.
Part of my neurosis includes memorizing the map of registered sex offenders. Last
spring we moved away from the troop-leader-predator and babysitter-predator, but
there are still uncle-predators and playground-predators and break&enter-predators in
this neighborhood too.
I know my boy is beautiful, and not just because strangers tell me. At 17 I cut off all my
hair and wore baggy clothes when I grew tired of hearing it, myself.
Whenever a man asks me to smile, I think of my father standing in front of every
automatic door he came across chanting OPEN SESAME as it does.
