“….she was found wandering on
the street, bleeding, with a
naked baby in her backpack.
she had apparently delivered
herself alone, by caesarian
section, cutting herself open
with a pocket knife, sewing
herself up afterward with
needle & thread. the newborn
daughter weighs 2 pounds, &
will survive. the mother is
being held for psychiatric
evaluation….”
poem heard on the radio,
8-8-81
she is found wandering in
crazy night, bleeding from the
mouth where meteors & time
hit. babies on her back, small
unnamed creatures, as the
moon slides its nitrates over
our puffed lids. with
a pocketknife she did it, cut
open the swollen mound & the
bulged ocean, slippery bones
that spilled out like new
fish over her hand, gasping
in her lift. madness, what
madness, as flesh parts
into a red sea, to be the
surgeon of one’s own self, the
first sweat dripping, the
globe rolling stained in the
basin on the wild table.
what nerves, threading the
needle’s eye, hands like huge
blue floodwaters shaking,
stitching the night closed,
insanely stitching thin black
streets & echoes where our
feet bruised her. then hoisted
to her shoulder, revolved
through neon & ice, sirens
& vast extinctions of
her lost gaze. then into a
cage with lightbulbs & strange
blankets, where questions are
given in pale spoons. her
face wobbles into walls, is
gone. the daughters weigh
enough to hold on, & will
survive
Read Meet Mago Contributor, Barbara Mor.
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My goddess, what a heart-wrenching, blisteringly beautiful piece.
This grabs my heart.