ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Sherine Elise Gilmour graduated with an M.F.A. in Poetry from New York University. She was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming from Green Mountains Review, Many Mountains Moving, Oxford University Press, River Styx, So To Speak, Tinderbox, and other publications.
Falling Stars
after being asked if I felt I had caused my son’s autism
Blame it on the hospital strapping me down like a dog,
like a felon, puncturing the sac, meds
in my veins for 36 hours, your skull swelling with blood.
Blame my body's confession. Confusion. My unknowing, my unpushing
when told to push your little plum-purple head.
Blame it on the night nurse. Blame “standard procedure.”
Blame blade and blame cut,
so deep your pupils stopped,
your eyes white bulbs.
Blame unresponsive. Blame that red button I found. Blame nothing,
blame fraud, its round “Emergency.”
Blame wires, blame frayed as you lay
limp on my chest. I couldn’t carry you out. Blame needles.
Blame skin and blame legs
caught in tubes. Blame fish, blamed drowned.
Blame my garbled words, blame the animal I became.
Broken trombone, heavy-lipped sounds.
Blame it on desire. Mine, to be loved. Blame DNA.
Nuclear. Mitochondrial. Blame my mother, too.
Blame the wheelbarrow of insanity, generations through
generations. Blame my body, betrayer. Blame my ligaments and lymphs,
my organs and my failures, epicenter of all my cells clearly skewed.
Blame my fucked up. Blame my broken.
Blame my ax-heart, my forest-hewed.
Blame it on me. Let me ride that blame to my grave, forever.
I will unravel that blame.
Let me die with that shame.
Blame it on me, blame it on me.
My. My. My baby. Small child eroded away
by this strange condition.
Let me hear you say mother, my one name, my true name.
Let me have you forever.
Returned to me. Let me be your flawed
and unforgivable mother. Let me be your mother-blame shrine.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
