Remove the plaster —
All at once.
While looking deep into some unholy place,
Produce sweaty muscles and chalky fingers
And pull this benign growth out from under me.
Leave holes and vacant spaces
Where some soul used to be.
Dead cold air, where the heat of me lived.
This belly is grasped out of starvation
And hunger for the child
Known to me as brilliant white
And larger than you could ever be.
Place your hands on that child
My child
Pushing, pulling and breaking down
The only part of me that was whole.
For one last brief moment
Let me lie on that purity —
That strength —
Fetal.
Crying “Farewell” to tears
And the pain of rock beneath my gritty nails.
Wondering… Is that all?
Picturing this as me,
Me as this.
And realizing that we both started from nothing.
I take comfort in creating
What will surely outlive
Myself.
This piece originally appeared in Issue 2 of Left Jab Poetry Magazine, published in February 1997.