When the ambulance came,
I climbed the cherry tree, popped
green cherries in my mouth and spit
the pits in the ditch. I counted them out --
twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one until the ache
rode waves in my stomach and
diarrhea dripped down my leg.
I was turning to dump the boiling water,
didn't see my mother. The pot crashed and clanked
against the kitchen floor. Two hard boiled eggs
rolled a cracked and hobbled
roll, pillowy white bursting from the seams.
She had collapsed in a chair, winced
and writhed as if it held a hidden
pocket where the pain would forget
it belonged. I tried to hold her, pet
her hair away from her face, but screamed
and smacked me away. Her face was so
bright and twisted I couldn't help but
laugh as I ran to the neighbor's for help.
A week later I smiled at her
as the doctor peeled the bandage away.
She turned from me and focused on the poster of the stages
of a fetus. The skin beneath the bandage--
the same shade of her nipple,
pink, angry and bright.
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