We start this blank canvas
He's taken to touching lightly my stomach and
joking at its most terrifying ability.
I've never seen beyond its banal responsibility
to digest a day
or give flight to an impulse, the follow
through of butterfly's wings which met us.
I try to picture the power my anatomy shares.
I'm stuck on my body,
how we've communicated in betrayal.
Exchanged pain between us
so I can't see the agreement
to make good on its potential.
My mother called it an effortless action,
that gave me the shape of my eyes.
I'm terrified for what I might give away.
Effortlessly dispose.
Who trusts someone so unsure of their bones?
3 replies on “We start this blank canvas”
A beautiful description of how women feel about their bodies. It reveals our fear of embracing their potential; our potential.
Wonderful body ––life giving!
A brilliant new poem on literarymama.com by Nina Smilow! So many resonances in 17 lines: a male joking about a woman’s body, pregnancy and its urges, the feeling of life within (like butterfly wings), the ways our bodies can betray us, and may have already done so. There are the pains, the potentials that may never be realized, the way we might pass on traits we don’t choose, and how a new being will be blessed or hindered by all of it. To take on such responsibility can be terrifying, given what we may have received, and know: we have no power over what traits that will pass to a child. Thank you!!!