March 12, 2003
Bellyache
I saw our children. I was driving down U.S. 27 with Modest Mouse crooning in the background , the radio, chiming suddenly in our daughter's voice, small, sweet, like one of those hard candies, a red and white sugar button.
I saw her pigtails bobbing in the backseat, the rearview mirror, but she wasn't there, no, not really, just the road like a concrete ribbon, my tire tracks, all that has passed.
O, I wanted to hold her! I suppose I do, some part of her, potential, in my womb.
All those little eggs! Little babies! I don't even flush them down the toilet anymore. I'm full, too full, their cries crashing against red membranous tissue. All of them crowded, anxious, caged.
Progesterone, jailer.
And you should've seen him, the baby, the boy, the Namesake, strapped in beside her. Glass glazed infant eyes. The pink skin in a blue jumper.
But then it was just my book bag, bursting, the heads of books peering instead of his. My imagination. I am only 21.
O, but I can taste motherhood like raspberry sherbet and monthly blood.
astera at 9:42 p.m.