Changes
I have never been
one for tears.
Even as a little girl,
a fall or cut
might make me
bite my lip,
but nothing more.
Now, it seems
tears come easily
and often.
Just last night
I cried myself to sleep.
Joseph tried to comfort me,
but how could he understand
my desperate longing
for the old me,
the one whose belly
was flat enough
to nestle comfortably
on her side
any time she pleased?
Easy
I always thought
Mary had it easy,
her knowing all along
God was the one
who wrote her story.
Guess I was wrong.
Turns out
she needed God
as bad as me.
Her Turn
Tears spent,
Mom brings me a cool cloth
to wipe away the evidence.
Between dabs, I notice
her shoulders sagging
from something heavier
than fatigue.
Maybe I shouldn’t have told her,
I think.
Look how it’s weighing her down.
“This year, I’m really twenty-nine,” she says.
I nod, waiting
for the punch line,
wondering what her age
has to do with anything,
wondering what’s worthy
of all her hand-wringing.
“You’re a smart girl,” she says,
glancing up at me briefly,
then looking away.
“Once I told you my real age,
I knew you’d put two and two
together.”
My math skills
are failing me now.
I have no idea
what Mom’s getting at.
Then, without further ado,
she lets the truth fly.
“Mary Rudine,” she whispers,
“I’m twenty-nine now,
which means
I was fourteen
when I had you.”
What?
One word.
That’s all I had breath for.
“What?”
After all these years
of Bible,
of “God said,”
of “wait.”
After coaxing me to do
the silver ring thing
she tells me this?
Not that she sinned,
but that she was
as young as me?
What exactly am I supposed to do
with this piece of information?
So many questions
pounding my mind to mush,
but only one word
makes it to my mouth:
“What?”
Why?
“I didn’t want
to give you permission
to be like me,” Mom says.
“To make the same mistake.
It’s a hard life, honey.”
This stranger’s words
build a wall between us.
I’m mad as hell
and I tell her.
Only, once I do
I realize it’s not true.
What I really feel
is robbed.
She stole
the straight-shooter I knew,
left behind this double-talker
who can teach me, what?
How to lie to my kid
when the time comes?
“You know why I told you
the truth now?
So you’d know
I understand what
you’re going through.”
I roll my eyes
and stomp out of the room
for emphasis.
I needed you to be my rock, Mom,
is what I’m thinking,
a hefty boulder that could
bear my weight,
not some small, smooth stone
washed up on
the same shore as me.
Pretender
“Always tell the truth,”
Mother used to say to me.
Who’s the liar now?
Teen Mom
One week since Mom’s
big confession,
how did I miss the signs?
The way it seemed
she was in school forever,
first high school, then college,
Grandma filling in the blanks
of her absences.
There I was thinking
my mom’s just going back to school
as an adult,
me patting her on the back,
proud that she did it,
proud that she looked young as
all her classmates.
Talk about stupid!
Guess the last laugh’s
on me.
Need
I can’t hate her now.
I need her too much,
especially since
she knows what it takes
to do this mom thing,
to have a kid
when you’re a kid.
It’s not like
they teach this stuff
in school.
On Second Thought
She lied to me, yeah.
But it must have been hard,
homework at the table
squeezed in between feeding me,
and running off to work
at night.
I might have noticed, except
she more than made the grade
as mom.
Hardly ever complained,
now that I think about it.
How’d she do that?
Okay, so she lied to me.
So what?
She loved me up one side
and down the other.
Nothing hypocritical
about her hugs,
now was there?
Zombie Prayer
Dead on my feet,
too many nights of no sleep,
and teachers wonder why
I nod off in class.
This forced exile
on my back
is too tough to take.
I daydream about detaching
this protrusion,
setting it on a table
at bedtime.
Jesus, I’m begging you.
Please let me sleep on my side
just one night, Lord.
Just one!
I swear,
I’d do anything you ask.
Try me.
Word’s Out
I feel funny
sitting in youth group,
the half moon of my belly
putting space between me
and everybody else.
But that’s okay.
I’d rather sit with Mom anyway,
feeling the cozy blanket
of her love
warming me up
in the pew.
Could be Worse
Folks at church
treat me better
than I imagined.
Sure, I get a couple of looks,
but mostly it’s ladies saying,
“We’re praying for you, honey,”
or “Let me know
if there’s something I can do.”
You’d think I grew
a few extra mothers.
Some days,
it’s enough
to make me cry.
I don’t think
it’s their words, exactly.
I don’t know.
Maybe it’s God
reminding
me
I’m not as alone
as I thought.
News
Last night’s news
was a shocker.
A fifteen-year-old girl I know
was killed by a drunk driver.
A drunk driver!
It’s not like I knew her well,
but still.
Our volleyball team
played against her’s
last season.
I can see her now,
standing at the serving line,
alive as anything.
It’s crazy.
You could be scoring points
for your team one minute,
and the next,
suddenly not be.
That’s when it hit me:
There are worse things
than being fifteen
and pregnant.
Picture Perfect
Mom makes sure
I see the doctor
once a month.
“Are you taking your vitamins?”
“Yes.”
“Any spotting?” she asks.
“No.”
“Good! Let’s hear that heartbeat.”
It all gets to be routine,
until she suggests
a sonogram.
No biggie, I tell myself.
She spreads some jelly
on my belly,
hooks me up
to a monitor,
and-voila!
Something moves
on the screen.
Little elbows,
little hands,
little feet,
little toes,
doll-sized head,
perfect mouth,
perfect nose.
It’s a baby!
A real, live baby in there!
A baby!
And it’s mine.
Self Serve
Early Saturday morning,
I speedwalk to the park
bouncing the ball of my belly.
I head straight for the VB court,
then sit on the sidelines
like some old fogey,
and stare at a stranger
serving up what used to be
my game.
I raise my arms
like memory,
imagine I am helping that ball
clear the net.
I never met a volleyball
I didn’t like,
only now, it doesn’t like me.
That’s silly, I know,
but try telling that
to my heart.
Six Months and Counting
At the Saturday matinee,
Sethany and I surrender our tickets
and make a beeline
for the popcorn concession.
With prying eyes sizing up
my supersized belly,
I’d just as soon skip it.
But Sethany says,
“What’s a movie
without popcorn?”
So, I stuff my shame
and feign nonchalance better
than any Oscar-winning actress.
Thankfully, we get in a line
that moves in record time,
and we’re soon enshrined
in the blessed twilight
of the theater, where
for 141 minutes,
plus previews-
I get to be
just another kid
in the dark.
Heartsound
I lay on the dressing table,
wrapped in a thin gown,
and yards of awe.
Obviously,
I’m no stranger
to basic biology,
or human anatomy.
I understand the work
of lung and aorta.
So explain to me
why the sound
of a simple heartbeat
suddenly seems more
like magic.
The Naming
From now on,
boy or girl,
my baby’s name
is Junior.
After seeing her
busy little fingers,
his sturdy little thighs,
the word “it”
no longer applies.
Shadowboxing
Maybe it’s
something I ate,
something I drank,
something I should have.
Whatever the reason,
Junior’s got me
against the ropes,
kicking like crazy,
sparring in the dark.
Quiet
My days are quiet
without Mother near
to chide me
or join me round
the grindstone,
or tempt me with a spoonful
of some savory new stew
from her cooking pot.
A lover of silence,
even I have had enough.
Come quickly, little one!
Fill this home with the music
of voices.
The life of a new wife
is too lonely.
Cravings
No matter what Joseph says
there are still lentils to be found
in the marketplace,
though I have purchased
more than my share.
And who could blame me?
Is there anything better than
chopped leeks and garlic
simmering in a lentil stew?
Joseph wrinkles his nose
as he crosses our threshold,
day after day, after day.
I smile a weak apology,
wanting nothing more
than another bowl
of that delicious stew.
Whispers
I trudge to the village well
in the heat of the day,
anything to avoid
those nasty gossips.
My secret joy
is cleverly hidden beneath
two layers of clothing
falling in folds, and folds,
and folds of softest wool.
Even so, at six months,
neighbors begin
to count the full moons
since my marriage.
I hear them wonder aloud
how Joseph’s seed
could so quickly
take root in me.
No one dares charge me
to my face, of course.
They simply lace their speech
with gossip about
the girl who is, perhaps,
too soon with child,
all the while
pretending piety.
God!
Please deliver me
from this vicious venom!
Beginnings
I wish they would widen
the spaces between market stalls.
All I seem to do anymore
is squeeze between small spaces.
I suppose I am just too-
Oh!
Leah and I bump bellies.
She is the first to laugh
and soon, I join her.
“Shalom, Mary,” she says.
“Shalom, Leah.”
She is a neighbor
I have scarce shared
ten words with before.
I suppose it is because
she is a few years older,
though that hardly matters,
now that we are both
mothers-to-be.
We have much in common.
We interrupt our shopping
to trade notes on midwives,
and whose expected one has
the strongest kick.
I love Hadassah,
but I long to have a friend
who truly understands
what I am going through.
And now, thank God,
I do!
Preparation
Three days running,
Joseph has missed
the evening meal.
I ask why,
but all I get for an answer
is “busy.”
Enough!
Even a strong man
grows weak without food.
I waddle about the house
throwing together a basket
of bread and cheese,
figs and grapes,
and a skin of wine.
I make my way
to his carpentry shop
out back.
Heavy as I am,
I manage to slip in
without drawing his attention.
Yet I am the one in for
a surprise.
Joseph, brows knit
in concentration,
bends over a handcrafted
baby bed.
I gasp at its beauty,
and Joseph, startled, looks up.
“Well, now you see,” he says.
“The sanding is almost done.
All that remains
is a bit of carving.”
I find it impossible to speak.
“Now that you have taken a peek,
what do you think?” asks Joseph.
I lay a hand over my heart
and let the love in my eyes
say all.
a♦dopt , v.t. 1. to choose for or take to oneself; make one’s own by selection or assent: to adopt a name or idea. 2. to take as one’s own child, specif. by a formal legal act.
– The American College Dictionary
Adoption
Mom mentions the A word
and I shiver from heart
to heel,
asking why my own mother
would advise me
to throw Junior away.
“It’s not like that,” she says.
“It’s love giving life a chance.
It’s giving the gift of joy,
girl or boy,
to an anxious couple
waiting for a child
to pour their love into
like a holy, healing potion.
So trash the notion
of throwing your baby away.”
My pulse pares down
to a steady rhythm.
“Did you ever consider