Passing through the pelvic bone

Here at the outset we are already two
 
We are already almost two
 
The child’s body does not belong to me      (though I am bigger)
 
I do not belong to the child     (except I do)
 
I relinquish my legs my lap my arms my hours my hours of sleep that begin in the evening and end at dawn
 
I relinquish my bladder my priorities my attention my thoughts appearing like loose strands 
 
I wrap the strands of my thoughts around      “dinosaurs”      and     “flower press”
 
And “matching the pieces in the painted wooden stacking set”
 
At bedtime, I wrap the strands of my thoughts around a hug and release them into the night
 
Passing through the pelvic bone as if weeping vast tears of milk
 
The mother carries the child as if it were an expensive sack of burden
 
A heavy sack of silk and silver
 
A frost of delight limns the rim of her small sleeping body
 
Passing through the pelvic bone into silver light and moon
 
Passing through the pelvic bone into mother, lights, room
 
Passing through the pelvic bone as if the moon is a circle or a crescent that symbolizes your childhood forever hanging in the sky
 
The girl is the woman who carries the girl
 
Well     I did wear a hot pink backpack 
 
I did     when there were still lightning bugs     capture lightning bugs in a jar 
 
What a stupid thing to write about 
 
Their dim bulb winking weeping off and on
 
In the dim grim grinning list of perpetual delights 
 
The list that’s rimmed with glints of sadness
 
Like flashes of metal in the sun the slap of my hand getting a mosquito
 
The sweet smell of Off! at summer camp
 
Girl talk and friendship bracelets at summer camp     At that time
 
I read the classic novels that described life and in them life was riveting and unrecognizable
 
I read the teen fiction that was tingling with the suggestion of desires that were only implied 
 
I read serialized stories packaged in lavender, pink, yellow, pale tangerine, muddy pale blue
 
Tales of a perfect false life unfolding at the lip of the sea
 
At the lip of the Pacific Ocean
 
Boys and malls and mix-ups and sports cars and parties and meanwhile 
 
I was trying on lipstick and outfits and guys were scary or boring or mostly boring 
 
That isn’t very uplifting is it
 
At the mall I would hand the receipt back with the product and say, “Thank you have a nice night” and the man would say, “It would be a lot nicer if you came home with me”
 
Or at the mall my friend would say
 
And I would say 
 
And my friend said 
 
Back then the boys we knew decorated their bedroom walls with posters of women kissing or women wearing low-rise jeans or sometimes only sand
 
At the beach the sand was mixed with     oil     traces of oil     broken green beer bottles worn into an oval     a palm     a shape of an ear
 
Sand containing the dead bell of a jellyfish and the dead bell of a jellyfish and a single broken claw 
 
In my culture motherhood was a far-off goal
 
Not a goal 
 
An impediment     A burden 
 
Discussed like so: “domestic chores are still unevenly divided”
 
“Don’t be stupid” or “college” or “get yourself knocked up” or “premarital sex” or “Girls Gone Wild”
  
Pulling pantyhose up and over my legs in a long skin-like tube
 
Pantyhose a long shimmering neck
 
Pantyhose with a run     caught on the sharp edge of your rough nail 
 
Pantyhose black     Pantyhose white     Pantyhose Mary Janes and sailor collars on Easter Sunday
 
Sliding among the legs of adults drinking coffee out of Styrofoam cups 
 
Adults milling about like monoliths like shadows and mountains and entities that last 
 
Milling among the women in lipstick and wigs and Aqua Net and belted silk violet garments 
 
Womanhood was permanent: the feeling and distance of the moon 
 
Girlhood was a twin bed 
 
Motherhood silver rippling ephemeral light reflecting upon the sea 
 
The mother carries the child as if it were sack of silk and silver
 
A frost of delight limns the rim of her small sleeping body
 
The ears soft as worn sea glass
 
Passing through the pelvic bone the girl is dipped in the color of silver
 
Passing through the pelvic bone the girl rips the mother’s skin and muscle 
 
Passing through the pelvic bone
 
The ears soft as worn sea glass
 
The mother is dipped in salt ripped dripped in blood given at the hospital one adult-sized diaper
 
Wearing that diaper filled with blood the mother fits the child into its little diaper
 
Fits the Velcro across the abdomen its little torso tight as a water bottle filled like a drum stumbling to the bathroom the baby’s awake the mother pulls herself from her car into Walgreens to buy more diapers for the new girl 
 
In the stirrups on the table the mother’s numb legs feel like the strong soft legs of somebody else 
 
The mother who was the girl is somebody else / somebody’s mother / herself / another self she inherited / battered about by the years
 
Passing through the pelvic bone
 
The mother full of sleep
 
Her legs are a little town and her shoulders are a town that’s switched off its lights
 
A town dark and asleep in the evening the mother covers her eyes with a gray sleep mask 
 
Now the child crawls in at the crook of her arm / light the color of gold in the crook of her arm
 
(To the girl the girl feels like silver)
 
(To the mother the child feels like gold)
 
Light as warm as the color of gold pools in the crook of her arm 
 
The mother plucks out her “self” a portion of her “self” to place on the nightstand 
 
Like the book or the project     something she means to get back to