On days when I am a mother

by Clara Burghelea

I no longer carry a child on my hip, and actually, wash my hair,

I even enjoy coffee dates with other mothers, where I swear,

we either talk about our sex lives or parenting. Both, a matter

of strict coordination. I should know paradise, it smells of

tantrum-free afternoons, except this is my limbo, where I am

caught between longing a foreign body ’s weight against mine,

the open-throated sky above, no misplaced breath of motherhood,

and Thermomixing my way into the cool evenings. There is language

lapping at my feet, the heady scent of sea in my nostrils, all folded

nicely inside my poems that won’t bend to the burden of the mundane,

yet cut out all the things—people, chores, body parts—that no longer

serve me. Outside these shredded bits of the day, the city moans and swirls.

Art credit: "Pandora" (1914) by Odilon Redon via the Metropolitan Museum of Art