Lorelei Bacht

Just the Beginning

after wrecking, still displayed on stiff sheets,
pinned white and hooked to manners of machines,
some dripping, some humming, somebody said:

and this, my dear, is just the beginning.

they meant: clotting, somnambulist, counting
every tick of the clock, eyelids, streetlights, stiff
hair, congealed spit, sweat and milk.

if I had known. but what was the other
collision course? sooner, later, at whichever
angle: I am returning to the ocean anyway, drip

drop. why not float it, however brief it may?
so we made you. at first a bright. at first a hope –
hope is lack of foresight. today marks

six years into this: we have made a person.
he has begun to build his own brick house,
his little marble run of repeating

whatever I said then, said when. and now:
we watch him walk the elaborate rope
he has wrung for himself.

he does not know it yet

*****

pots and pans in my face: I must
melt yours into mine – only then,
will we discuss.

discuss how my hormones a chain
of pain linked incomplete and gone
cock-eyed – a severe twist, writes

the doctor. but we know doctors, how
they would peer through amniotic
curtain calls if you let them.

so I let them. perform perfunctory,
conclude what I already know:
this one is beautiful. oh, look:

I have woven a better me, one that
holds salt, one whose blood travels
up, one who can walk a mile in

the rain without death like a dog
at heel. one who carries silent.
the doctor calls my replacement

tablets fine for milking. so I milk
him white and warm and sat by
the window watching city lights,

I wonder: what age should I tell?

*****

we've come to be muddled. if we
make a bird-boy or a gill-girl, we will
love them – not regardless,

but more. we drank the rain, the drain
grit, the streetlight: no other body can
do what mine does – you have

seen it bent over, bile vomit, calling
for help, walking that purple line, scent
of charcoal and ferns, not crushed, not

quite – look here, some how, some
thing small and clear-eyed happened and
called: I come not as a gift but as hard

work, which is one and the same. every
scale of my skin spells: you were right;

spells: all you need is a torchlight.

*****