offers sage advice to ease the throbbing ache between my thighs
as though the raw meat of my womb
were just a bruised knee
pain far removed from her cloistered flesh
beneath ponderous folds in her gblack habit, perfect wimple
that shield her from squalling babies and men's body parts
sweat and the bite of love and self righteousness.
Sister's cheeks crease into creamy wrinkles.
Broken blood vessels embellish my eyes
testament to thirteen hours of effort,
ankles so swollen I am carted in a wheelchair
to lay eyes upon my firstborn.
Sister pats my hand, murmurs
God gives you pain, then rewards you with pleasure--
see, how beautiful it is?
How she twists the adjective
like fabric with mismatched designs--
I would not love my sapphire-eyed daughter less
had she slid from between my legs like a folded origami.
I want to leap up and slap the woman across the face
but I send her off to someone else's room
to spoon-feed platitudes to a willing victim
slong with Gerber applesauce and formula
tested against her virgin wrist.
(c)Terry Cox-Joseph
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