Saturday, March 04, 2006

AFTER THE TEST SAID YES

Poem by Kelly Madigan Erlandson from Born in the House of Love (Main-Traveled Roads). Originally published in Barrow Street.

After the Test Said Yes

Stopped at the crossroad on 14th street, ice clean
as an apple slice under my wheels, I am waiting
for my turn and I don't know yet about looking back
which is why I cannot describe the color or make of what hit me,
moving too fast to brake on the black, and my blue Volkswagen
shoots out into oncoming lanes and once there begins to spin—
and that is where time slows, like they always say,
forming an opening in the day that was already thick with news.

The man comes to the car window,
wants to know if I'm okay, and I tell him I'm pregnant,
that I just found out this morning, and he looks like he will faint,
and I open the door and step out into the street,

and this, I believe, is the story of conception; how my daughter
used momentum and ice and velocity and impact
to pierce the atmosphere and enter the world.

1 Comments:

Blogger E. said...

This is a beautiful poem. It quite sneaks up on you, the last stanza so mind-bending, moving, much going on in a tiny space, like poetry should do.

10:40 PM, March 04, 2006  

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