Someone’s BabyCharlotte Isenberg
The silent writhing,
death-defying, self-sacrificing
miracle of motherhood.

What a cruel joke, what a punchline,
to let me hold it, perfect,
knowing it growing would kill us both.

I have nothing for you now. I am wire and bile and wrung-out edges.
My only hope, my sweet summer star, is to take you far, far away from this.

The pills are bitter and my spit is viscera, so I sink low to the floor for its cold against my skin.

I am a warm, aching pool, profoundly alone for the privilege of bleeding out beside the toilet
because they decided a doctor’s office is too dangerous.

I smile, knowing I am also an animal body clawing to a single-track survival that no law could stop.

I am free in spirit, in spite, like the dust after the flood, like the kudzu, like my trailing blood.

Oh Arthur, oh Sylvia, please come back when I get clean, when I am new.
Thank you. I’m sorry.
I am someone’s baby too.