Cherries

Rocked in my mother’s pregnant amble, and born into forty-five years in the dark, the egg this child was also swayed in the arts of lovers I took before you, fed with me in the public markets of Baltimore and Denpasar on oysters and rambutan, woke with me each year to new waves of wander, fish and flower, liqueur of each region, and bread of each village, each cup of moonlight in the long sward between my window and the Wannsee. The egg he was heard and voices of everyone I desired and held itself in some deep hormonal bloom, taking whatever was remarkable in my life into its possibility. We learned not to hurry in Balinese rain, to listen for the rumble of wild boar in the Malvan woods. We climbed into planes bound for cities we’d never visit again and skin we’d summon with sobbing. And so, my husband, as you dream of owning this child, remember that he has ridden in my fire, bathed in my blood, and sipped at the breath I drew the first time I saw what Rodin had clawed from stone before he turned from Claudel and went home for dinner and a clean shirt. Remember that this child is collage of everything before you, frangipani and escargot, five-for-a-dollar boxes of macaroni, and French cherries from an old woman in Auvergne who insisted on the gift because it was so marvelous to see a woman traveling alone.