Mother

Was it a dull ache,

A fluttering beneath your belly,

Or a memory of heaven

That announced my arrival silently, 

Beneath your breastbone?

You were the first to feel me.

You were the first to carry my pain.

You were the first to sacrifice all of yourself

For that which you did not know,

But that which you loved.

There is no soul in the world who feels the pain of a child,

No voice who silences tears,

None who feels the peculiar presence of a life,

As she who has carried it within herself:

It can not be removed in nine months. 

How can I doubt your love for me,

You who loved me first?

How can I hide my face from you,

From whose womb I was torn

With screams and gnashing of teeth?

Blood and water.

Needles and forceps.

Pushing and pulling.

Vernix and hair.

Smiles and tears.

Tomatoes and cottage cheese. 

Ice cream and pickles.
Pineapples and popcorn.

Lobster tails and red steak.

Macaroons and mangoes.

One does not walk the world for nine months in misery

Of bloated feet,

Of aching back,

Of endless nausea,

To let go so easily.

You remember the final push in the delivery room

As no one else remembers it.

You remember suffering the longest contraction

As only one mind can.

You remember my head on your lips for the first time.

Sonnet 1

I doubt that Shakespeare ever wrote a song
To anyone that he intended to
Keep fast within his heart for more than one
Or two flights of fancy. No, it cannot
Be easy to admit impediments,
But they are there, though we choose to ignore
Them for a hope of better times to come,
For tender moments of recovery
Of love. For alteration is a firm
And steadfast principle of all we see,
Though silently we hope that we are wrong.
   There be no error in these loves I write,
   In black upon this whiteness of the void.

Moon

I've learned a lot by looking at the moon
This winter, as it has moved across the
Sky, east to west, along its nightly course.
Though born and bred a child of the day,
The night has owned my company as well
As any other time. And looking up,
I see this ball of dust and rock, whose white
Face so brilliantly shines that the blackness
Becomes purpleness or grayness, not quite
The austere emptiness of black alone.
From up above, I've heard, the Earth itself,
Too, is quite beautiful in blue and white,
But that's another perspective: it seems
To me there's nothing but acknowledgement.

That there are real places on the moon, and

That people have been there is unreal, and 

That footsteps and flags are there right now, and

That if you had a spaceship you could go

And see that the craters are real places,

And see that the darkness is really there,

And see that it is warmer than you thought,

And see that your weight is not your weight.

Maybe I'll go there to see for myself.

Maybe I'll place my foot in the moon dust.

Maybe I'll tear down the American flag.

Maybe I'll see what Neil Armstrong saw

When he opened the hatch of The Eagle

And stepped giantly on the face of God.

But she wanders, each night, she wanders, 

As I sit on this porch of treated wood,

And type here, on this machine of lightning,

In quiet contemplation of her face --

Interrupted by blinking jet plane lights

That move across the sky in quietude,

A distant rumbling five miles above

Where passengers sit and read and sleep

And perhaps read these words when I hit

Post. And they, too, will know what I know,

As they observe a movie about Mark Zuckerberg,

On the screen that lights before their faces,

Or as they crane their necks to see the moon

That shines upon them in full gibbousness.