Welcome to The Rumpus’s National Poetry Month project. We’ll be running a new poem from a different poet each day for the month of April.
I May Have Made Something Up
They’re put in a pot, a way of praying.
I forget—does the pot have a name? What-
ever: this light, this book, the thick red this
menstrual blood—you see the care. You first see
just the head in a circle. The image
starts growing. It was impossible to
think of it—its real self. “This” is simply
a code word, the letters indistinct. This
issue came up of the object. I can’t
decipher: sacramental souvenir?
a circle? an adornment? the music
of the revolution? the dream option?
It’s a part of the image: the woman
as house, bakery, clock. When it stopped (but
how many days were counted by it), she
says, “You can bring it to life again,” and
the minute finger moved when I picked it
up. I swear. I couldn’t protect myself
with this miraculous skill. I wanted
to get help. A mother needs that. Do you
know that you were born?
