To One Who Wrote Me, “I, Too, Am an Incest Survivor”
How could I have said that my mother pried
my thighs apart and think you would know
it was the thighs of my spirit? When she lay down with me
and prayed, my pelvis ached, I did not
imagine worse. I heard of worse,
of a mother who pressed her daughter’s hand
on the pancake griddle, and popped the blisters
and poured in salt. Nothing like that
could ever happen to me—my mother would
just come in, in the dark of late night,
smelling of my father, ornamental pool
where carp had died and grown body-beards of algae.
She was only saying her prayers with me, along-
side and on me, and the absence of belonging on
earth would grow, between my legs,
and the next day, swinging on the school
rings, that thing would happen that I thought of as
the force of God exploding me—
the first time, my knees pulled up to my
shoulders, a kid laughed, I learned
to point my toes, with the dignity
of a hell-plumb. I did not know,
as a child, that there were parents who pried
their children’s thighs apart. I think if I had
heard that then, I would have fainted of fright.
Once I heard it, I tried to forget it.
I forgot you, as my mother, even when with me,
seemed to forget me, as her mother had forgotten
her. Now I remember. Here is my hand, if you will take it.
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