Catherine Zickgraf is indebted to myspace for helping her find her long-lost son whom she placed for adoption two decades ago—thus you can find her blog there: myspace.com/czickgraf Her poetry has appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association and in BirdsEye Review.  She also has work forthcoming in GUD Magazine and decomP.

Four Poems (October 20, 2009. Issue 10.)

Babies into the World

If I were you,
I’d reproduce, too--
one baby every other year.

But don’t you know—
it’s better not to know—
that the world is fucked?

My child arrived fresh into the world,
and I caught him in slice-scarred arms.
They took him away,
before I could break him.
They wrapped him like bread,
like a package.

We are cycling as generations pass:
my Mother broke me because
her Father broke her.
Will I take apart my child, too?

He trusts the giant who carries him—
a dense rock, a dull burden.
And I trust this creature with miniature hands—
that he will fulfill me.
I need him to need me.
I need my needs fulfilled.

And you, with your Godly army
lined up like stairs,
it seems that you
intend to climb them—
your clumsy reach grasping for
your own satisfaction.

Transcend

Smoking in bed is most likely done
by those who aren’t disturbed by dis-
owned hair coiled like snakes in the
sheets, dusted with skin crumbed off
their legs, or by ashes in their blanket
ripples.

How pleasant, perhaps, to rest well in
the mess, igniting a quick death or inha-
ling a slow one.

Postpartum

Paper neighbors drape my couch.
They hold the baby,
bake flavorless casseroles.
I nibble when he sleeps,
or sleep when he naps
after I’ve boiled the bottles
and washed some spoons.

I awoke this morning on a roll of toilet paper.
Apparently, it cushioned my cheek sufficiently
when my head fell sideways toward the tile.

Postpartum lasts half a year,
thin autos slide up my street.
They’re off to someplace paved in clover-grass
or berber carpet—where people work
and talk and think.

I wear sweat pants I snipped
pre-partum down the stomach band—
my waist still wide, broad hips don’t yield to denim seams.
Grandmother’s sweater buttons up the front,
He calls on me often to open sweater, lift shirt.

Between gray walls and bolted doors

I exist to just to nurture this wiggling child.

What I Really Think of You

I don’t fault you for clinging,
splayed, low on my shower door.
You’re hung on the scum,
my hair on your tongue,
non-pubic, at times, and otherwise.

You drool, eyes up.
Microscopic, your wants.
For the course of
a month, you’ve obsessed
on me nude.
You’re fuzz at my feet:
you’re spotty, browned—
segmented like a
roach through the ground.

Your sooty antennae
tip through steam,
exfoliate-feeding
the pits of your mouths.
I tend not to fault you for
being you or for
not being me
in complexity.

Decide, though, I could,
to despise your existence
and bleach-force your
corpse through the
slime of my drain.