FROM FECUND
And she
would say
that we
couldn’t say
weird
she told
us all
about
violent
words
and
the violence
that was
summoned
when they
were said
She praised us
for the right
words
the words
that were
very clear
and we
talked about
language
so that
it matters
to us
but also
made it hard
to think of anything
as true
everything was dialectic
a gray
so much gray
that the gray
became opaqueness
and we
occasionally
found ourselves
too tired
to remember
how to speak
We forget
our destructiveness,
Mother
for all the supposed life we have
the deaths we have created
account for far more grief
than we care to acknowledge
it’s a plea not to go back
to the unnatural bleeding out
us little ones
while not
a direct cause
certainly are
a part of
the death of the mother at the clinic
the death of the mother at home
the death of the mother in the car
the death of the mother in the bathroom
the death of the mother in bed
the death of the mother, premature
the death of the mother
the death of the mother
the death of the mother
it’s from a graveyard we can say
it was the death
of us, too
somewhat ironically
a cruel price
for a lack of choice
that could have been
as easy as
one down
if the option
were given
like
taking one for the team
to preserve the others
the others including the mother
it’s from the
graveyard this
irony exists
because
in death
we are
so permanently
undone
lack of choice
can take out
the entirety
of the organism
KATIE EBBITT is a poet and therapist. She is the author of Another Life (Counterpath Press, 2016), the chapbook Para Ana (Inpatient Press, 2019), and has contributed poetry to the anthology Rendering Unconscious (Trapart Books, 2019).