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Unpregnant
Unpregnant,
obsolete, unused
for centuries, the term,
according to Webster's,
means inept, unfit,
incompetent.
In other words,
it is defined as
everything I'm told
after miscarriage
I should not feel,
yet I've stumbled
upon the entry this morning,
lacking sense or reason.
It seems to me a woman
must have produced it
out of her own fury and sorrow,
four hundred years ago today.
We chart cycles, predict fertility, map DNA,
but allow the same questions to linger,
then and now in our minds
like an uncured plague--
Am I not suitable?
Is this not the apt time?
Is motherhood for me inappropriate
to an absurd degree?
Its synonyms are awkward,
discomfited, unwieldy.
I could work with that last one,
use its mass to impel
my dreams forward,
arrange its bulk
to keep them from
sliding too far back.
I gain the most
from its antonyms,
though--those terms
that allow the opposite
meaning to stand--
deft and graceful,
the way I imagine myself
to be, one day nimbly
balancing this period
of my past with
those of the future
whom I await,
who await me.
Laundry Day
On laundry day,
my mother would plant her feet
at the sodden base of the stem
of our rotating clothesline
and clothespin my father's slacks
into place, one pair after another,
until they swayed together
like filaments of a flower,
the belt loops protruding
from the waist tops like anther,
soft lint pollinating
the air around her.
Again and again
she'd stoop to unfold
from her woven basket
pillowcases, dish towels, and blouses
that unfurled like ecstatic petals,
blossoming in her chafed hands--
a hovering bluster of color
as she hung and adjusted them
one by one, arranging her bouquet.
As she'd turn the line
on its fragile creaking style,
the bloomers ballooned
into overly anxious ovules
quivering with anticipation
above a half-slip calyx,
the baby's stringed bibs
forming the spreading sepals
at the center of it all.
At last, my mother would stand
straight and step back, hands on hips,
as if to gain perspective
on her creation,
drink in the scent of it,
and watch the wind deliver
it over to the sky
with a flourish. |
Maternity
I bought a little black dress
with you in mind, today, Mother,
with you as my inspiration,
my model, my idol, the best-dressed
expectant woman of all time.
I still pore over the photographs
of you, taken by your most ardent admirer,
my father, in the glory of your last
trimester with each child, and
still can't get over the ensembles
you pulled together even then—
the lace tunics, velvet wraps, clutch purses, and
never ending array of scarves and shoes.
It seems you always had somewhere to go,
off arm-in-arm with Dad,
who was eager to show you off—
his bride, his wife, the mother of his awaited child, his lifelong
love.
I have always been less glamorous
than you, who I so marveled at,
more hesitant to reveal myself
through the fiber of my own clothes.
But I went to a maternity shop
like you used to urge my sisters to do
and looked through the racks, searching out
the midriff panel you relied on
for support, all those years,
underneath it all.
I had trouble at first,
amid the trendy low-cut fashions,
finding garments that would
help me display your blend
of modesty and confidence.
I was only browsing
when I saw the little black dress
hanging there, a wink of fabric
beckoning me.
When I got it into the dressing room,
I saw it was a shirred black v-neck slip
of a dress, shirred at the sleeves
and skirt hem. I slid it over my head
and watched it cling to my body
all the way down as it fell over me—
accentuating my breasts, belly, and hips,
each part at once my most prominent feature,
in an assured pronouncement of womanhood.
When I stepped out to look
in the three-way mirror,
the shopkeeper, who had before
been moving subtly between rack and counter,
in an attempt not to follow or bother,
began to dote on me, adjust and smooth
the shoulders, say how much
she liked the dress since it had arrived,
pointed out the material would grow with me
as my pregnancy progressed.
I don't need it.
I don't know where I will wear it.
But as I imagined your expression
of approval, I knew I had to have it,
if only to pass down a summer snapshot
of me in it to my own child—
this is how I wore my pride
when I carried you, Little One,
this is how my mother
taught me. |
