The Source

I came into this world already in grief.

My birth mother had her handbag,
her blue cardigan. She was beautiful

in red lipstick. She left me behind
like a package on a city bus.

I stewed in my own hothouse
for months—pricked footsoles,

a nose of tubing. My own blood
was my best conversationalist.

O do not leave me, I said
of the cheerful yellow walls,

the glass case I was placed in
like a fairytale baby. It was all

too happy—the lab coats
and nurses’ shoes, the clean tiles.

Stay with me, I whispered
to the fingers with their needles.

Even pain was a beautiful touch.

I entered this pain entirely. It was
as pure as the Sunday twilight

I was born in. Hush,

my birth mother said. I whimpered
into the world as though

little had happened. Her love
was the leaving, was the source

I can never quiet—it has a heart,
a mouth, and our own dim bones.