a possibly mediocre poem with some good parts that i feel like sharing
grieving the possibility of motherhood in a time of constant heartache
junebug
we talked about having you in the summer, how we could call you our junebug, your bird, your bee, our bug. how you would have my bright red cheeks and i wished for your jj’s big green eyes and their nose, small as a button on each of your cousins. you would run around in your thrifted sweaters and overalls, bang together the old building blocks, rock your favorite stuffy in the big arm chair, the one i bought as a high school student. the one that i moved into my bedroom at 21 through pure willpower and that would only be taken out by an axe. your aunties would love you. you would have sleepovers with auntie k, ride around is wagons full of used books. i would strap you to my chest or back when i worked the shelves. auntie m would make you dresses and buy you the cool shoes. the ones she wished she had growing up. auntie j would teach you to love art, to color in the lines or let your hand go wild and she’d take you to feed the squirrels. junebug, we’d call you. born from generations of hard work, of women you would never know who paved the way for you to be here. and we would take you around the world, to see what was left to be seen. we’d want to take you to see the ocean but the coast never recovered from the fire, and there is no hollywood sign to see, and there are no more whales to watch from the coast. only the little wood one dangling from my rear view mirror, or the ones etched into your nursery bed. we’d want you to see the islands like i did as a girl but they became a modern day atlantis all abandoned tourist traps, iguanas, and bibles. and you would never see the inside of a public school, or the steps of a college. and baby, you will never see the rise of day, the fresh sun on the soft grass, because by then the earth will become gray from smoke and ash and dust, or wet and heavy from drowning. we’ll live in the center of it all, the constant give and take, take, take, take, pumped from the earth. still drilling into her, in search of something that dried up a long time ago. junebug, we’d call you. with big green eyes, a little button nose, and hair too thick to tame down. we’d call you junebug, but we’ll never hear you sing.
