pain like this ever.) and i am thinking, this is the one
who told me i would hurt. FORGET ALL THAT SILLY
BREATHING STUFF. YOU’LL TAKE A SHOT LIKE THE
REST WHEN THE TIME COMES. now, every time he
sticks that wooden board up me, jams that stake inside my
bleeding heart, i know, this is one who likes to give me pain.
this is static. no stop between. how can they know the
mountain of pain in me? how can every woman suffer so?
how can every man and woman walking on legs, the thousands
you see each day, how can each have had a mother like me?
how can life contain it? how can any woman know and let
this happen? one pain like this should be enough to save
the world forever.
the nurse says she’ll give me a shot. still wants to
give me a shot. but i don’t want a shot. i’ve tried so hard
all night to stay awake and fight and breathe, and now it’s
8:00 and might go on like this forever i want to be awake
and see my baby, want to see him crown, the head immense
as sun and bright with blood crack over the bowl of earth i
want to feel the womb of god close over me, and want to,
more than anything, feel joy and love and welcome him god
help this man be born into this world help his mother wants
to share this moment with his beauty wants to hold on to
the pain a second more and feel him crown inside me majesty
and might no more than being humble will allow a broken
woman, let me be awake and push him into light . . .
it’s light outside it’s light i can see it in the mirror
day is coming night is passing i am so far in myself
i can’t see out can’t say no to anything floating on my
pain . . .
doctor comes in to feel the head. keeps coming in,
making me hurt, sticking his whole hand up my asshole.
and it hurts like sticking a wooden ax handle up my cunt
and grinding it inside me, hot cigars burning ax handles
and i can’t move i’m in such pain, can’t move away from
him raping me each time sticking his whole gloved hand
up my wounded cunt.
my heart is open. my whole body is open and cannot say
no. my mouth, each mouth inside me is open and bleeding.
each heart is like the moon without a middle, a white
hole in the sky so wide the sun has gone through.
he must be happy to make me feel such pain. he must be
happy because he is a man and in control of me and i
cannot move away from him while he takes me on this bed
of pain and he tells me it is for my own good when i
tell him how i hurt, he tells me it is almost over, but
the clock is stuck on pain, stuck on forever, and i know
that he is lying.
he wants me to roll and beg like a dog, please doctor
please don’t hurt me anymore do anything do anything you
say but help me help me not to feel such pain but i don’t
beg him. i don’t beg him because i hate him. i keep
my pain locked up inside. he’ll never know how much
he hurts me, i’ll never let him know.
my heart is frozen like a calf. on ice. my heart is
empty meat. my heart, my love is frozen. i will never
love again.
up there. the girls are in the dark. behind
dark panes of glass. i cannot look in, but
i can see their faces. they are happy for me.
they have gone to sleep with smiles on their
faces. they are happy because i have
gone down.
but i am so alone.
tonight all windows are gray and shuttered
by paper. all rooms are closed to me tonight
except this room, awash with brightness.
far away, across the courtyard, up through
darkness, like the dark around a ship without
a thought of land, is light, another light, the
light of girls’ dreams.
how i wish that one would light a candle,
all night a candle of consciousness lit
outside my pain. but i am far away, lost to
the sight of land, and they are quiet, like
children in the nursery.
let them sleep tonight, ignorant of where i
stand (their knowledge cannot help). but how
will i ever look beauty in the face again,
once blinded by this light?
transition
the meat rolls up and moans on the damp table.
my body is a piece of cotton over another
woman’s body. some other woman, all muscle and nerve, is
tearing apart and opening under me.
i move with her like skin, not able to do anything else,
i am just watching her, not able to believe what her
body can do, what it will do, to get this thing accomplished.
this muscle of a lady, this crazy ocean in my teacup.
she moves the pillars of the sky. i am stretched into
fragments, tissue paper thin. the light shines through
to her goatness, her blood-thick heart that thuds like
one drum in the universe emptying its stars.
she is
that heart
larger
than my life
stuffed
in
me
like sausage
black sky
bird
pecking
at the bloody
ligament
trying
to get
in, get
out
i am
holding out with
everything i
have
holding out
the evil thing
when i see there is
no answer
to the screamed
word
GOD
nothing i can do,
no use,
i have to let her in,
open the door,
put down the mat
welcome her
as if she
might be the
called-for death,
the final
abstraction.
she comes.
like a tunnel
fast
coming into
blackness
with my headlights
off
you can push . . .
i hung there. still hurting, not knowing what to do.
if you push too early, it hurts more. i called the
doctor back again. are you sure i can push? are you sure?
i couldn’t believe that pain was over, that the punishment
was enough, that the wave, the huge blue mind i
was living inside, was receding. i had forgotten there
ever was a life without pain, a moment when pain wasn’t
absolute as air.
why weren’t the nurses and doctors rushing toward me?
why weren’t they wrapping me in white? white for respect,
white for triumph, white for the white light i was being
accepted into after death? why was it so simple as saying
you can push? why were they walking away from me into
other rooms as if this were not the end the beginning of
something which the world should watch?
i felt something pulling me inside, a soft call, but i
could feel her power. something inside me i could go
with, wide and deep and wonderful. the more i gave
to her, the more she answe
red me. i held this conversation
in myself like a love that never stops. i pushed toward
her, she came toward me, gently, softly, sucking like a
wave. i pushed deeper and she swelled wider, darker when
she saw i wasn’t afraid. then i saw the darker glory
of her under me.
why wasn’t the room bursting with lilies? why was
everything the same with them moving so slowly as if
they were drugged? why were they acting the same when,
suddenly, everything had changed?
we were through with pain, would never suffer in our
lives again. put pain down like a rag, unzipper skin,
step out of our dead bodies, and leave them on the
floor. glorious sprits were rising, blanched with
light, like thirsty women shining with their thirst.
i felt myself rise up with all the dead, climb out of
the tomb like christ, holy and wise, transfigured with
the knowledge of the tomb inside my brain, holding the
gold key to the dark stamped inside my genes, never to
be forgotten . . .
it was time. it was really time. this baby would be
born. it would really happen. this wasn’t just a
trick to leave me in hell forever. like all the other
babies, babies of women lined up in rooms along the halls,
semi-conscious, moaning, breathing, alone with or without
husbands, there was a natural end to it that i was going
to live to see! soon i would believe in something larger
than pain, a purpose and an end. i had lived through to
another mind, a total revolution of the stars, and had
come out on the other side!
one can only imagine the shifting of the universe, the
layers of shale and rock and sky torturing against each
other, the tension, the sudden letting go. the pivot of
one woman stuck in the socket, flesh and bones giving
way, the v-groin locked, vise thigh, and the sudden
release when everything comes to rest on new pillars.
where is the woman who left home one night at 10 p.m.
while everyone was watching the mitch miller xmas show?
lost to you, to herself, to everyone
they finished watching the news, went to sleep,
dreamed, woke up, pissed, brushed their teeth, ate
corn flakes, combed their hair, and on the way out
of the door, they got a phone call . . .
while they slept the whole universe had changed.
delivery
i was in the delivery room, PUT YOUR
FEET UP IN THE STIRRUPS, i put them up, obedient,
still humbled, though the spirit was growing larger
in me that black woman was in my throat, her thin
song, high pitched like a lark, and all the muscles
were starting to constrict around her.
i tried to push just a little. it
didn’t hurt. i tried a little more.
ROLL UP, guzzo said. he wanted to give me
a spinal. NO. I DON’T WANT A SPINAL. (same
doctor as ax handle up my butt, same as shaft
of split wood, doctor spike, driving the
head home where my soft animal cowed and prayed and
cried for his mother.)
or was the baby
part of this
whole damn
conspiracy,
in on it with
guzzo,
the two of them
wanting to shoot
the wood
up me for
nothing,
for playing
music to him
in the dark
for singing
to my round
clasped
belly
for filling
up with
pizza on a cold
night, dough
warm.
maybe
he
wanted
out,
was saying
give her
a needle
and let me/the hell/
out of here
who cares
what she
wants
put her
to sleep.
(my baby
pushing off
with his black
feet
from the dark
shore, heading
out, not
knowing
which way and trusting,
oarless and eyeless, so
hopeless
it didn’t matter.)
no. not
my baby.
this
loved
thing
in/and of
myself
so i balled up
and let him
try to
stick it in.
maybe
something was
wrong.
ROLL UP
he said
ROLL UP
but i don’t want it
ROLL UP ROLL UP
but it doesn’t hurt
we all stood,
nurses, round the white
light
hands
hanging
empty at our sides
ROLL UP IN A BALL
all of us not
knowing
how
or if
in such a world without
false promises
we could say
anything
but, yes,
yes.
come take it
and be quick.
i put my belly in my hand
gave him that
thin side
of my back
the bones
intruding on the air
in little knobs
in joints
he might
crack
down my spine
his knuckles
rap
each twisted
symmetry
put me on
the rack,
each
nerve
bright
and stretched
like canvas.
he couldn’t get it in!
three times, he tried
ROLL UP, he cried, ROLL UP
three times
he couldn’t get it in!
dr. y (the head obstetrician)
came in
“what are you
doing, guzzo,
i thought she
wanted
natural . . .
(to me) do
you want
a shot . . . no? well,
PUT YOUR LEGS UP,
GIRL, AND
PUSH!”
and suddenly, the light
went out
the nurses
laughed
and nothing
mattered
in this 10
a.m. sun
shiny morning
we were well
the nurses and the
doctors cheering
that girl
combing hair
all in one
direction
shining
bright as water.
i
grew deep
in me
like fist and i
grew deep
in me
like death
and i
grew deep
in me
like hiding in the sea and
i was
over me
like
sun and i
was under
me
like sky and i
could look
/>
into myself
like one
dark eye.
i was her
and she was me
and we were
scattered round
like light
nurses
doctors
cheering
such waves
my face
contorted,
never
wore
such mask, so
rigid
and so dark
so
bright, un-
compromising
brave
no turning
back/no
no’s.
i was so
beautiful. i
could look
up in the
light and
see my huge-
ness,
arc,
electric,
heavy, fleshy, living
light.
no wonder they
praised me,
a gesture
one makes
helpless and
urgent, praising
what goes on
without our praise.
when there
was nowhere
i could go, when i
was so deep
in myself
so large
i had to
let it out
they said
drop back. i
dropped back
on the table
panting,
they moved
the head, swiveled
it correctly
but i
i
was
losing
her. something
a head
coming through
the door.
NAME PLEASE/
PLEASE/NAME/whose
head/i
don’t know/some/
disconnection
NAME PLEASE/
and i
am not ready:
the sudden visibility—
his body,
his curly wet hair,
his arms
abandoned in that air,
an arching, squiggling thing,
his skin must be
so cold,
but there is nothing
i can do
to warm him,
his body clutches
in a wretched
spineless way.
they expect me
to sing
joy joy
a son is born,
child is given.
tongue
curled in my head
tears, cheeks
stringy with
damp hair.
this lump
of flesh,
lump of steamy
viscera.
who
is this
child
who
is his father
a child
never having
been seen
before,
without
credentials
credit cards without
employee
reference or
high school grades or
anything
to make him
human make
him mine but
skein of
pain to
chop off
at the navel.
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