Motherhood

The first time I saw her eyes, I was mesmerized. There she lay in the arms of another, but my own arms ached to hold her. I was impatient, too impatient to wait a single second more as professionals confiscated her to do their bidding. I could only watch with anticipation, my very corps bleeding and in pain. She was wet and waxy with her brilliant newness and my heart leaped out of my chest onto a pool of pride. Life appeared before my very eyes. A life that felt yet another pair of arms before she could feel my own that had carried the growing seed for what seemed a millennium. The strange man cuddled her and offered a smile. She would remember his voice forever.  He could see my anxiety crest as I fearfully took this new being into my life. I stared into a face that was my very own, a reflection of myself with eyes so alert that a mirror came to mind. I gently stroked her crown covered in a cinnamon softness and touched a perfect silken skin. I breathed in her essence and would remember that scent forever, a scent that would refresh me until the day I die.

La Lune Mangée

I saw it from my open deck

That shadow ate the moon tonight

Slice by slice, the darkness

Slowly swallowed every bite

 

One star hovered to the west

Another from the northeast

A misty cloud of heavenly fog

Surrounded that cannibal feast

 

And soon the moon looked sad to me

Exposed in that black sky

Like a rubber ball hung by a string

In a universe of blackberry pie

 

 Turned into a 7th grade science project

The moon lost its shine and glow

Destined to win a prized blue ribbon

For achieving Best in Show

 

The stars seemed to protect the orb

Saving it from fate or fame

Until it could once right itself

Wrest away its cloak of shame

 

Tasted an eclipse myself that night

Watching an orgy of the sky

Oreo cookie melted in my mouth

The moon be gone, as was I.

 

–Victoria Emmons, 2014