The Conception
How could you let him do that to you,
Mother? Nine months before March
you let him in. That means June. Still
the smell of world war, a future rising
before you like the fat orange of city sun.
Sleeveless top, bare feet, perhaps
the sweet waft of clover out beyond
the last slaughterhouse on the west Side.
Music was involved somehow, I need
to believe. Oak or elm, I like to think.
In this family, we're sweet-talkers,
the men, and we have our needs (to hear us
tell it), headaches, tremors, the blues
coming on (we say) if we don't get, you know,
solace. How a man can suffer, we plead.
But we're men who'll spend a whole life
courting. And of course, no pedestal's
too high for you, in my eyes. You were always
too full of love for those who needed you
to be. Would you be here today if
you hadn't labored to bring me here?
Am I guilty of the screams, the tubes,
the morphine that blissed you at the end?
Did I put you under grass early? Some debts
are paid only when the debtor lies down
nearby, image and likeness an homage
to the maker, pockets empty, hair combed
by strangers sterile in latex gloves.
I know it's what I owe, when all is said
and done, my dear, the least I can do.