Family History Circumscribed by Time and Space
Between the layers of a ham and cheese sandwich
warming on my father’s dashboard
before he was my or anyone’s father,
existed the promise of my mother, who—
between bouts of vomiting
thought to have been caused by:
a) consuming a hot dashboard sandwich
b) an unexpected pregnancy
c) hepatitis
d) all of the above
and which turned out to be
both b) and c)
but decisively not a)—
married my father.
No images of my mother,
pregnant, exist,
though her blonde perm
used to rest famous
in a portrait on our mantel—
almost medieval, the way,
in the halo of her feathered bangs
at one year old I sat, wide-eyed and bald,
like an avuncular banker.
Between then and now: sandwiches,
geometry, benediction, beige apartments, vacant
silos growing whole trees inside, scraps of to-go
Styrofoam making snowstorms of car floors.
Between phone calls
with my parents, time
and every pregnancy test I’ve taken,
every tenacious single line
impossible to exist between.
[ ] is the Big Bad Wolf
in this version / a red-cloaked girl / the cloak doesn’t symbolize / blood, in this version / the girl goes to her mother’s house / toting a basket / of crusty breads, soft cheeses, ripe fruits / in this version, her mother greets her / wan and gray / in this version, the girl asks / if her mother is unwell / her eyes, dim circles / her veiny hands / weary mouth / in this version, the mother lies / the better to, the better to, the better to / the mother lies in bed / in this version the girl pries / open her mother’s mouth / reaches down / her throat / pulls out stone / after stone / after stone