On Conception: A Few Poems
Come sweetheart, I am hungry, hungry. – Albertine Sarrazin

I.

In the desert I write nothing but
He came up from the foundry.

Los Angeles in perpetual morning.
The cat waking me at 5.
The roses beginning to bud.
The wind pushing the bells around but not striking them.  

You will have a girl. My girlfriend says, even though I am not pregnant.

And I laugh and say to someone else –
I am supposed to pray.

I read about a girl’s remains.
Deep in the canyon.
A lewd drawing left on the wall.
A puma coming down from the tree.
A group of boys going into the sea.
A car left abandoned but still running.

My hair beginning to turn gray.

This was the moon for letting go.

A big glug of olive oil.
A head of garlic.
A half of an onion.

I had wanted to be an offering.
Something that fit into the mouth.
A tooth, a tongue.

(I had wanted to forget myself.)

III.

I hated confessional poetry but here we are and I am on the 10 freeway behind a car with a
license plate from Wyoming and it’s left brake light out.
And sometimes I still miss you. The sky knitted over with clouds.
The way you brought the sea to your forehead in prayer how you lifted my dress up
in the heat in the desert in your sleep in the early morning touching my hip and saying
Who’s this? Who’s this?
The hens not laying any eggs.
And how when I first met you I thought fire.
And it tore through the city that year bringing all the animals to the shore.
And it tore through the north that second year taking with it
whole towns and a girlfriend’s home. Leaving nothing. Nothing.
Not even a set of fishing poles that had rattled against the windshield
setting the woman I knew ablaze.
And when I met my husband I thought deep water.
I thought dark blue.
Getting up in the early morning in the cold in the desert to cover me in a blanket.
When I first met my husband I thought father of my children. I thought care. I thought full.
Buying his mother boat. Bringing me a kitten. Letting me name her.

V.

I dream always in the cinema.
An image of a dock.
A body going into the bay.
The sound cutting out.
The houses on stilts.

I wake to the baby kicking.
I wake to sore throat of heartburn.
Going for a swim. And my husband, who
doesn’t believe in God or the afterlife or reincarnation says:

Remember this is all temporary.

Cutting the grass back on the hillside.
Buying me an ice cream.

And my husband who doesn’t believe in God or the afterlife or reincarnation says:

Do you think she has a soul already?

And in my dreams it is always the women that save us.

Braiding their hair.
Sharing a knife.

And I say to my daughter, running a hand over her first home. Her ears open.
I am sorry it is all such a mess but we’ll try to have fun while we still can.
I promise.

All of us wondering if her eyes will be blue.