Dead Lines (24 Weeks)

Everything is reversible, says a man
who has never counted out 24 weeks
on the left-most 7 knuckles of his hand just to keep track of how
many days lying by omission would work
before everyone with eyes becomes an accomplice
or a runaway car. I’m happy
with my delightful birth-defected deaf cat screaming at me
to wake up and smell the vomit he so kindly deposited
beneath the roses. I’m happy
with my cousin in tears stringing along the phone line. I’m happy
with ‘babygirl’ being flexible as long as it’s warm. I’m happy
with prenups and European passports. I’m happy with all that
is reversible, which yeah sure, is most things, but baby,
nothing ever really gets taken back. We just forget
to be happy with what we have. I do it too, I don’t want to
do it to us. Want to stop seeing
what I do: a hidden shine
on the unrippled lake surface insisting
on itself, whispering in circles that
I saw it in the mirror over my shoulder
back when only my Barbies were getting divorced.
They were always walking out of Roman stone court buildings
with their plastic heads taped on
loose. They were bad bitches, bad daughters, bad wives,
and yet they stepped across the inch-high threshold of their homes
and let me click their briefcases open knowing I was hoping
for ten million dollars or a human embryo
gazing up at me like a stillborn lamb.
I always pictured it half-dead so
I could nurse it back
to my life. Never could believe the universe would give me anything
I could easily share. Always knew I’d have to work for it, knew that
I wouldn’t be the only one bleeding when they cut
the cord away forever
only half symbolically.