Another mother poem: phantom baby
August 12, 2010
PHANTOM BABY
The biggest change:
even when we're apart
I'm not self-contained
always aware
that you washed up
helpless on my shore
strangers squint
as I narrate my day
in a sing-song to no one
the sticky smudges
you left on my glasses
frame everything I see
high-pitched voices
make me turn, heart
suddenly inside-out
you are missing
from my hip
an invisible ache
I'm becoming increasingly aware of the ways in which becoming Drew's mother has changed me. The first day he was in daycare, I walked up Spring Street toward a lunch date at the Thai place and was constantly conscious that he wasn't with me. After only six months, being apart already felt strange.
So far, it seems to me, parenthood is a constant process of letting go. There are trade-offs: in the womb we knew perfect intimacy, but couldn't meet. Now we are separate, which is at once the source of loneliness (especially for him, I'm guessing) and the source of our ability to connect. I can't help seeing this as a metaphor for how we relate to God, too: here in the created world it's our separateness from God which allows us to reach toward God and to be in relationship.
Anyway, this week's mother poem grew out of the experience of being apart from Drew. The poem's central metaphor is a riff on the idea that someone who has lost a limb may feel the limb's ghostly presence even after it's gone.
I didn't write to this week's Big Tent Poetry prompt, but here's a link to this week's Come One, Come All post so you can see what others wrote.