I’m pregnant. I’m surprised. I wonder
if family is the foundation of this nation,
what’s so bad about socialism? Dad?
The Lord is more than fertilizer to me.
Their divorce made me a whore, I’m told;
it was all my fault, because when it was said,
“He’s beating a dead horse,” I—
I put my arms around its neck and wept.
A house is not a home, unless you hang your hat
on the rack; a mother, a father, and I
is not a democracy. Sure, there was yelling under
that old patriarchy, but at least I learned to fish.
“Let go of the damn horse,” they said, but I—
I wouldn’t and when I wouldn’t they said, “Fine,”
and I got left behind, holding a pony no longer able
to flick away the gathering flies with his tail.
Then and there I watched them go, parting
like the seas. My path would be the one between them,
or my tears could flood the basin of this earth,
with all the animals one-by-one, pregnant and surprised.
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