An Anthology of Poetry and Medicine
Moon Child
Like living inside an angiogram, I remember the womb—
Blood vessels illumined, eellike, hot to the touch. Moon
Child, I could hear my mother, muffled by
All the light and absence—
With you, ataxia wobbles my desires; haste to have what my mother had.
I think of these things to tell you when you are asleep:
Little pools of water filled with limbs. The sky is dull,
The sky in excess. I draw rings around your belly.
Sometimes I do things to you because I want you to do them to me.
In the morning, when you are still asleep, I reach my hand
Into your mouth, down through your chest. I turn your heart over.
first published in The Journal