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.