25 April 2009

poem-a-day challenge ... 25 april 2009

4th of July

Nothing is quite the way it
used to be—not my bladder, not
my breasts—and I am hungry
for only one thing: fish. I feel
more awkward than normal—
a gap-toothed girl who
dived in way over her head.

The doctors predict a
miscarriage but the child
swimming inside me is a
miracle—doesn't every
mother say that?—and some
people's predictions can be
deceptively cruel.

In the middle of Spring, I let it
all spill out. Some of them are
fascinated, watching me like
a television set as I predict the
day of your birth, your sex, that
you're a late sleeper—but most of them
shake their heads and leave the room
as if I'm foolish, or completely mad.

Imagine what they'd think if
I told them that your fraternal great
grandfather—who passed on before
I ever met your father—visited
me in a dream and told me about
a newborn baby boy, eyes
the exact blue of mine, who
would be born to the sound of
fireworks over the Puget Sound.

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