Why I Am Not a Mother
My step-son’s daughter has a tiny blister
on one toe because it was wet in the park
this morning, so she had to take off
her sock, put her hard shoes back on,
and though the chasing and sliding
and landing in puddles was all giggles,
back inside she’s pouring sad noises now,
how very much it hurts. So there’s a three-way
debate between her and her mom and dad
because she’s already pulled one bandage
off but wants another, and then when her mom
puts a new one on she screams and buries her face
in her father’s lap until he pulls it off again.
And because she studies ballet, as I did, and because
she’s best in her class, as I once was, I want to take
her foot in my hand and tell her, “This is just
the beginning. You will have so many blisters.
Your toes will bleed-and-callus, bleed-and-callus.
Every part of your body will hurt at different times
in different ways because it is truly a bloody business
to try to make art any way at all, but most especially
when the instrument is the body you craft against
time, against nature, against its animal self, but
you’ll persist and when it’s gone you will miss it
always like a first best lover who stayed forever
perfect while you got older and weaker
and smaller.” Instead I watch her parents work
their patient tag-team magic until she slings herself
across her grandfather’s lap, all pain forgotten.
I sit on the floor beside her. We share a cupcake.
* * * * *
Inheritance
for Sarah Verdi
She kept her hats in stacked boxes, never
left the house without one and its matching,
immaculate gloves. Taken out of school
at twelve to support her brothers, she became
a seamstress, doing the fine work — cuffs
and collars for men’s jackets, the lace trim
on a lady’s blouse. She improved everything
she touched, re-hemming her skirts with
lace, replacing the plain blue buttons
on a winter coat with a set of red leather,
twisted to fashionable knots. Her cooking
was like that — simple but stretched
by her own invention, the need to use
everything. Tiny cinnamon buns made from
trimmings of pizza dough, or her famous
tomato sauce, simmered on Saturday
afternoons to radio broadcasts from
the Metropolitan Opera. Verdi her favorite,
and of his, La Traviata. It was years
later, in an elegant restaurant with
my new, well-heeled lover, that I realized
how little meat she put into the pot. This,
I believe, is my aunt’s gift to me, the gift
of our ancestors: To make, from a thread-
bare story, a three-act arc of luminous,
lasting song; to taste, in a shaving
or pork or beef, the exquisite flavor
of all we’ve had to do without.