THE FIRST TIME

SARA MOORE WAGNER

When I lost the baby, the man said                 sleep,
            and he was above me holding
her body,                                  a cloud in the sky,
the slow morphine drip                                   pat, pat.
Time moves in the hallways and firmament,
and I believe it             when the man tells me
about tissue growth on the outside of my uterus.
I am a house being coated in sugar,                            over
and over,                     my unlit street stretches out
into a path in the woods,       my baby
walks towards me with her hands                   up—
 
I might push her in the oven to have a taste of what it feels like
to be her, walking so young towards empty.
 
Give me a way or a pill to make this neater,
give me a knife or a pill:                                  another scene.
 
 

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