“Motherhood” & “Monologue”
Monologue
But since we share—your body born of my body—
blue eyes, lumbar glitch, thick, quick to heal—
I thought I’d let you know how far you’ve foiled
our DNA: the thinning hair, the bloody
high pressure, the arthritis that comes and goes,
the bone spurs in the joints, the hammer toe
on the right foot (your Uncle Stan has got it too),
not to mention the yet-to-come disease:
the cancer that felled my Granddad, or my Dad’s
attacking heart, Aunt Jessie’s broken hip—
all of it off your radar with one blip
or, rather “brain laceration,” as they said,
from the one bullet (we’ll always have to ask:
Did you just take that chance, or were you certain
you needed only one?)—how it careened
from your thick hair to the curtain, the breaking glass,
which perhaps you heard, as perhaps your mind
changed its last will: Let me have those, not this.