Baby Fever

It started in earnest when I turned 24.
But maybe it started way before that
When I was six years old and somebody gave me a babydoll
And said, "Look at you! You are going to make such a good mama one day!"
And even though the memory is a smidge fuzzy
I imagine my precociously sailor-mouthed response was something like:
"Yeah, fuckin right I will."
Because "gonna be such a good mama one day"
is something I have known in my bones for as long as
I've been aware that I had bones and that they could know things.

And I don't think all women feel this way, nor should they.
I have friends who refer to children as "spawn"
And fetuses as "parasites"
And I totally respect that. This poem is not prescriptive.
It's just an attempt to explain to you
That in the last three years or so, something has happened
to my brain.
And it re-happens at least once a month--
You might even say cyclically.
I see a pregnant woman walk by and I go all melty.
Even worse, I see a man walk by and I'm all,
Mmm tss tss, mmm tss tss, mmm
You give me fever
I mean, not actually the Peggy Lee kind
Because, men...no...
I mean Baby Fever.
I've got baby fever. I've got it bad.

I start having a conversation with my ovaries.
Like I'm on the bus and a man sits across from me
And they're all, "Look! There's a sperm!"
And I'm like, "Shut up, y'all!"
And they say, "Make a baby! Make one now! He can help!"
And I'm all, "No! Guys! This is not a good time!"
"Not a good time? You don't need a full time job,
or health insurance, or a savings account! There's a sperm! Right there!"
"NO. That's a dude. And I'm pretty sure he's either homeless or a vegan.
And you have NO idea how drunk we would have to be
to think it's a good idea to have sex with a dude."

It's like my ovaries don't care that I'm a lesbian.
Frankly, it's a little insensitive.
But I guess they don't have to care because it's not their job.
Apparently, what their job IS, is to make sure that
every time I see a onesie with a frog embroidered on it,
or those tiny, tiny sneakers with velcro straps,
I'm droppin eggs like I'm the fuckin Easter Bunny.

I mean, I'm not saying I'm going to kidnap one
I'm just saying that if you have a baby
And it goes missing, and my oversized purse
Is looking a little full and a little squirmy
It's probably better if you just think, "Oh it's cool, I'll make another one"
And don't ask me about it.

Because it's getting serious up in here.
It's getting to the point where I HATE opening up Facebook
Because I went to an all-girls Catholic high school, which means
That everyone I graduated with is pregnant. Again.
And I scroll through the mommy blogs and the pictures of the cherubic,
Bright-eyed creatures with their culturally literate names
Like Escher, and Anais...and I feel like I'm doing something wrong.
And now I am begging the universe for confirmation that I am bigger than my biology--
That it's not just about survival anymore--that we are ALL bigger than our biologies

Even if sometimes I don't want to be.

In Defense of Delilah

I want you to know, Samson, I would do it again.
Even though it means the ruin of all of us. I would
Purr at your heels, take your head in my lap,
And slice those curls right off.

But not because they paid me, darling.
You and I know better than that.
We both know there are few things so expensive as falling in love
How it costs so much more than you ever think it will.

No, not because I was paid.
There was a night, Samson, I knew
What strength was. You breathed into my ear
And whispered, "Woman, take me in."
And I did.
You were heavy in my arms,
Draped like a dress across my torso.
You shuddered and slept, a pile of raw sinew, but
My hands were wide and consummate. I held you
Like Atlas holds the world
And in an instant I knew what it was to be strong like you.

But do you know what it is to be weak like me?
To have other men believe that you exist for them,
That you are edible, conquerable,
That they can legislate your body.

Tell me, Samson,
If you could unroll your veins like a scroll
What would I find written there?
I do not believe it would be the same story people tell these days.
I think it would say you loved me because you could bring me to my knees

Tell me, Samson, did the bible ask your consent when it told our story?
It sure as hell didn't ask mine
And I want to set the record straight.
I cut your hair because
I wanted you to wake up and face something Byzantine
That claims to protect you from your own decisions
I wanted you to try and fail to tear it down
I wanted to make us the same kind of vulnerable
And, Lord help me, I did.
I am not proud.

But history will paint me sinister.
Put me in with Jezebel and Bathsheba.
I stand with them as I stand with Eve saying yes to the apple.
I will link arms with other women
And we will cut off our hair too
Because our strength comes from someplace deeper.
And our blood will answer the cry of thousands of Philistines
And our blades will not be stilled.

Samson, I don't want to be this angry.
If there were any other way, I would take it.
But until another option presents itself, this is where I stand:
Razor in hand, I would cut your hair ten ways to Sunday
If I thought for a minute it would make us even

Dépaysement, Take II

Austin, I love you. You are warm and strange, and you are always creating, creating.

Austin, I love you. But there's someone else. There always has been. And I couldn't get her out of my hair, even if I tried.

See, it's not as simple as roux and hurricanes. It's her brown skin and saunter, the way she electrifies straight hair. Louisiana drips down my back and wedges herself under my fingernails, under my tongue. Louisiana is damp and panting.

Beyond the flash of sequins and tease of feathers and the allure of misbehaving on Bourbon Street, Louisiana spits at local color. It's rust from her mouth into her Gulf, and how she is the deep groan of a pier settling into the murky spillway. And oh yes, Louisiana does spill. She flops into the queso, the tortillas, the fried avocados I eat here. Fat and gorgeous and sweating, she purses her cypress lips and rolls her moonshine eyes at East Texas--where don't nobody make groceries--and says a novena for your sister, the one whose husband ran off last August, the hottest damn month of the year.

Louisiana takes herself a beautiful vat of brown gulf water and serves up an etouffe. And maybe she's dirty, swampy, and alligator-eyed. Maybe the races she's winning have names like "Incarceration Rates" or "Most New Cases of Gonnorhea and Syphilis." But maybe you're just embarrassed because despite all that, she still sways her hips. 

Because just beneath her surface is a glorious and profane heritage of Haitian voodoo queens, French-Catholic bacchanalia, devastating slave labor, and sweet, backwater coonasses. And if you slide on past New Orleans, into Acadiana--into Church Point and Mamou and Eunice-- for the courir, the Mardi Gras run--you'll see where they make community matter. They go door to door to door to door, asking for ingredients for a gumbo everybody shares. To every person in town, they say, "We need you. What you got that you can give? You give us an onion, a pepper, a handful of flour, and we'll turn it into something that feeds us all. 

So Austin, what are you going to do when I show up at your door and ask? Cause you know I'm going to ask. I'll feed you, baby, if you answer when I call:

Donnez que'que'chose pour le Mardi Gras!

Truth, Counter-Truth, Dare

The first time I recognized a woman as simultaneously beautiful and fat, I was 25 years old.

For a quarter of a century
I had this fucked up theory
I believed that every fat woman was secretly
A vessel for shame and disgrace.
That the judgments of America were written on her face
That she could be sweet, or funny, but not sexy
That all the room in her personality, was taken up by being heavy
And I was afraid that if I talked too loud or too much
All of a sudden people would notice the way my thighs touch
As though those things were in any way related
Like somehow playing smaller would keep me inoculated
Against the photoshopped princess I was supposed to be

But when I met Allison, that lie slipped out from under me
Everything about her was big:
Her hair, her eyes, her belly, her thighs
Her arms, her lips, her breasts, her hips
Allison was not afraid to take up space
From the moment her smile radiated from her face
Allison glowed: I mean light shone from her
This woman didn't just walk to her own off beat drummer
She danced, and when she picked up a tune
Her big honey voice could hush up a room
I met Allison, and for the first time
I realized a fat woman could also be fine
And maybe, just maybe, that fate could be mine

Things I used to believe, I'm taking years to unlearn
And I still have good days and bad days in turn
So I make it a game to make it easier to bear
For the things I have to remember to choose every day, I'll call it Truth, Counter-Truth, Dare

Truth: When a classmate pointed out how my belly stuck out over my waistband, I threw my lunch away untouched. And then at home I cried for hours and ate an entire box of powdered donuts, a block of cheese, half a jar of Nutella, and a tupperware of leftover spaghetti. I fell asleep in my closet, covered in crumbs, and marinara, and shame.
Counter-Truth: It is not actually insulting to be perceived as fat.
Dare: The next time someone asks you if you're pregnant, say, "Oh, I'm not pregnant. I'm just fat. You're right, though, my skin is glowing from all this excess of awesome."

Truth: Sometimes being big means you are invisible to salespeople at retail stores.
Counter-Truth: People much more actively oppressed than you have had to walk up to unfriendly counters and ask to be served. You got this. Yes, I know invisibility hurts. But invisibility you choose by pretending yourself away is even worse.
Dare: Do not play small. It doesn't suit you.

Truth: Kate Moss said that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.
Counter-Truth: Kate Moss has clearly never eaten a single meal in Louisiana. If she'd ever had good jambalaya, or hot fresh beignets, or a fully-dressed po-boy with that rich brown gravy that drips all the way down your chin...homegirl would know what a foodgasm feels like. And it doesn't matter what size your jeans are: when you're done, you gonna want to unbutton them.
Dare: Eat good food. I mean, eat good food.

Truth: I have slunk out of dance halls and aerobics classes with my head hanging low, feeling that I was too fat and too slow, that I must be the only person in the room who didn't get it.
Counter-Truth: All bodies are good bodies. Even the ones that sweat a lot. Even the ones that don't step-ball-change real smoothly. Those bodies can still shimmy like nobody's business.
Dare: Move your body. Every day. Even if parts of you keep jiggling after the rest of you stops. You were made to dance. You were made to shine.

Truth: My mother cupped my face in her sweet, caring hand, and said she worried that because of my weight, no one would want to date me.
Counter-Truth: Even the most well-intentioned parent who loves you with her whole heart can sometimes also be wrong.
Dare: Fall in love with yourself. Until you do, it won't matter whether or not anyone else has. Fall in love with yourself. You are worth loving.

These are just a few of the gifts that Allison gave
My daily prescription to help me be brave
It's the game I play, and you can play too
Be unafraid. Love yourself. Take up space. I dare you.

Fugue in F-Major, Ending in a Sonnet

I know it's cliche to have a thing for musicians
But let me just say...I have a thing for musicians.
Cause, you know, someone puts their mouth just right on a reed
It makes sense, that's a mouth that knows what you need
Yeah, give me a woman who plays flute or oboe
Cause she knows how to puff up her cheeks and blow
And you cannot underestimate the importance of rhythm
Your own metronome going to tick tick tick'em
It takes patience and attention to know
When it's time to kick it up and time to decrescendo
Because let's be honest, ladies: timing is everything
Ain't nothin' offbeat gonna make your bell ring
And if you want a love to produce a volcano
Set me up with a friend who plays the piano
It's a quick damn trip from sonata to bed
I think Tori Amos put it best when she said:
The piano is a passionate instrument... a sensual instrument, and, um,  you can hide men in it
... So there's that
You want to seduce me? Start in Bflat
Stretch out those hands, and honey you are golden
Cause nothing works faster than Asharp to F7
It's about running your fingers over the right keys
That's pretty much all it takes to make me week in the knees
Cause there's something beautiful, both aural and visual
About playing percussion on my favorite triangle
And I promise when I say this, I'm not trying to be porn-y
But who can resist when a woman gets French horn-y
And oh, heaven help me, if she's got a harp to pluck
Those fingers moving so fast, I just wanna...have a conversation with her
And the cello, sweet Lord, do I even have to say it?
It's shaped like a woman and you gotta open your legs to play it
Oh and one more, I realize it's common
But there's this woman that I have my eye on
And I, so often, wish that I could
Be made of only strings and wood
And have her hands begin their trek
Pressed lightly at my arching neck
And make a slow but steady trail
By working down my major scale
So stringed melodic I would croon
And then my eyes to her eyes tune
That nothing could be so easy
For a bright minstrel, such as she
To wrap her arms around my hips
And strum me with her fingertips
And I would find it bliss by far
To be but used as her guitar

Feast of St. Erzulia

Let the wind carry this sound up and far,
From my lungs and yours, the yes
Of bees' wings thrumming
And orchids trumpeting delirious with color

You were never meant for oubliettes
Or fainting couches, but for dancing
In wide places (how you shine, flossy thing!)

And free, now you are
From the dread of needles and prongs
And grave-faced doctors,
Let us chew up our orders and
Steal napkin weights, and try all manner of magic,
And in the beats of the pounding bass, know
We were made for the swell

Will

I leave you the cottage,
the book about fungi, and the broom.
The goat with her ruthless teeth
will belong to you also.
I leave you better sense than your mother had,
the deck of cards, the herb garden,
the tea kettle and cups,
and the rabble of people who do not like witches,
but who will brave the brambles
hoping you have a remedy
hidden somewhere, maybe under your shoe,
in your cupboard, or in the escargatoire in the root cellar.
Which reminds me, I leave you, too,
the cupboard and the escargatoire.
And the root cellar.
Yours the roughened hands and the logolepsy.
Yours the prescient dreams, the beeswax candles,
and the will to deliver, no matter the hour,
whatever must come bleeding and squalling into this world.

Don't forget to feed the goat.

Selkie's Girl

Mam used to tread on seashells in our house, with feet that
never quite fit her. Only later would I see how she was meant to move.

Once I woke in the small hours and felt her gone. Peering
across the strand, I saw her kneel by the waterline. She drew clawfuls
of sand and flung them out, baying and barking
from her throat. The moon made an oil slick
of her skin, a wildness she could not give me. 

She wept when I asked her to teach me
to swim. "Little thief," she said, "Don't you know
that seashells are bones?" I knew, but I wanted
her to cast me in skin. I wanted my hair to knot
like hers, like seaweed. I wanted my body to look
like hers, the roundness of her womanself,
the damp and furry places. "Foolish child," you will say
and you will not be wrong, for I was the thief
whose love trapped her here, the thief that freed her, too.
I could not look like her if I tried. In hungrier times, I make
the same moaning sounds, barking like questions she will not answer. 

Lately I feel the stirring of wildness
Mam left behind. You will tell me, and you will not be wrong,
to find the seed of that wildness and seal
it in. But if I cannot go back to the sea
as she did, I will spend the rest of my life learning how.

The Bird Nest in the E

There was a Texaco station
at the first stoplight out of our neighborhood.
Vivid capital letters across a black ribbon
advertised fuel to us and free housing, we would learn,
to others. Our mother saw it first,
the nuisance of twigs protruding from the lower
lip of the second letter. Not the cozy O,
nor the safe triangle of the A, nor even
the the protected valley of the X, but
the narrow slat of the E. The
sparrows abiding there had chosen a home with a ledge.
It swiftly became the fashion for all
present 5- to 11-year-olds to declare,
"The bird nest in the E!" upon the passing
of any Texaco station. Bonus points
if you said it first. And my mother,
whose ears had been used to exclamations
far more grating, would only blink her patient eyes,
knowing she had hinted to her children
at the unpredictable gifts of occasionally looking up.

Salt Dissolves

This inchoate dream I had

was sprinkled into warm water. White, 

iodized grains lilted and settled on the bottom.

I wanted to taste the salt on everything. 

I lost it, split lip dripping. 

(I should know better, I should know better.

It was never going to be the sort of undertaking

I could waltz up to on a whim.)

The ocean rolls into my mouth.

Among the jellyfish, reef sharks, brittle stars, limpets,  

the taste is still there, changing the water.

Spilt dreams tossed over my left shoulder,

they brace me, balast against the incalculability of the sea

and the un-alonest I will ever be.