Friday, August 22, 2008

A Poem

I don't consider myself a big fan of poetry. The truth is I don't really know much poetry at all, but I get turned off by stuff that seems too sappy or too sugar-coated. Every once in a while I come across something that strikes me as truly honest, or raw in its approach. This one suits me perfectly right now.

New Mother
By Sharon Olds


A week after our child was born,
you cornered me in the spare room
and we sank down on the bed.
You kissed me and kissed me, my milk undid its
burning slip-knot through my nipples,
soaking my shirt. All week I had smelled of milk,
fresh milk, sour. I began to throb:
my sex had been torn easily as cloth by the
crown of her head, I'd been cut with a knife and
sewn, the stitches pulling at my skin--
and the first time you're broken, you don't know
you'll be healed again, better than before.
I lay in fear and blood and milk
while you kissed and kissed me, your lips hot and swollen
as a teen-age boy's, your sex dry and big,
all of you so tender, you hung over me,
over the nest of the stitches, over the
splitting and tearing, with the patience of someone who
finds a wounded animal in the woods
and stays with it, not leaving its side
until it is whole, until it can run again.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Even old, seemingly sexless ladies like me, remember this. I love your blog. Heidi was inspired by it too--she says it's the first person in the family she can relate to. She's having a crisis of faith--thinks my family looks down on her or would talk bad about her if she left the church. She doesn't get that everybody is just trying to make their way and she's no better or worse than anyone else, and who cares if they talk anyway. We all talk. I hope it's ok to be on your blog? I don't plan to talk you though. I got to it once from Kass and this time from Jen. Bailey is beautiful. I hope to see her soon. We are all addicts - it's just our drugs of choice that differ. Love you, Aunt Betty

Anonymous said...

oh,I meant stalk you, but I don't plan on talking you to death either. - B