This is where I would shop

if my husband worked felling trees

for the mill, hurting himself badly

from time to time; where I would bring

my three kids; where I would push

one basket and pull another

because the boxes of diapers and cereal

and gallon milk jugs take so much room. . .

And I would think, hanging out the baby\’s

shirts and sleepers, and cranking the pulley

away from me, how it would be

to change lives with someone,

like the woman who came after us

in the checkout, thin, with lots of rings

on her hands, who looked us over openly.

Things would have been different

if I hadn\’t let Bob climb on top of me

for ninety seconds in 1979.

It was raining lightly in the state park

and so we were alone. The charcoal fire

hissed as the first drops fell. . .

In ninety seconds we made this life-

a trailer on a windy hill, dangerous jobs

in the woods or night work at the packing plant;

Roy, Kimberly, Bobby; too much in the hamper,

never enough in the bank.

-By Jane Kenyon

The first time I ever became a mother
I waited for the thunderclap from the heavens above,
for the ground to tremble and shake
to herald the arrival of my darling little cherub.

But no, it was very disappointing
a big let-down, if truth be told.
I\’d been admonished all my growing-up years,
Wait till you become a mother
You\’ll know how it feels. . .
My mom had twisted the knife every time
I\’d been disobedient or rebellious.

I waited for the outpouring of love
the blessedness of grace to embrace me
as I gazed down at the twisting, writing red face
of my seven-pound infant, who was screaming his lungs out like a banshee
The way his toes twisted and curled reminded me of an ugly toad\’s webbed feet

Is this what the craze is all about, I wondered?
Is everybody in the world daft?
The never-ending suckling at my breast
The endless rounds of clean-up, foul-smelling waste and diaper changes
The years of giving up of one\’s life, one\’s ambitions
because somebody else\’s needs come before your own.

There\’s no babbling joy in this, I pondered.
And yet, now, as my last one prepares to leave home
and I trade my busy, harried world of mom to two
for that of an empty nester I realize how true it is.
I feel scattered. . .
I\’m coming undone. . .
I read this somewhere:
To have a child is to forever have your heart go walking outside your body.