Muse 13

Looking too young to bar-keep
the technician comes in shaking
a beaker that froths and hisses

like volcanic vodka or martinis
mixed by Mr. Hyde. Artless as an egg
she offers me this cocktail

neat or on the rocks and won't take
no for an answer.
We do not speak of cancer.

Ninety proof and guaranteed
to knock me sober, this
barium refresher is served always

with a twist. It smells and tastes
like a nuclear waste site
laced with a splash of lye. Trying

to be philosophical as a Greek
and brave as a Roman gladiator
I quaff this pewter sludge

without flinching, without betraying
my mortal fear the fluoroscopy
will show my troops have broken

rank and an army of mutant cells
advances along my exposed flank.
Have I already lost that

battle against aggressors
who sail their warships
like pleasure boats along my

defenseless coast and set up
camps upon my shores? Accepting
that I must join forces with

allies I neither know nor trust,
I lift the proffered cup as Socrates
must have: one eye on the door.

You've set off on a journey
with everything ahead
and nothing yet determined.
What is there to be said

except, Make it a good one,
and be all you can be.
We'll go a while with you
as loving company.

an old man in old clothes
in a mall food court
with closed eyes
sits with his head drooping
hunched over his Burger King meal

i ascend the escalator
concerned and staring down at him
questioning his:

i almost tripped at the top
when he blessed himself
and began to eat

Staring into fossil displays
I sense your fear of being
encased, everyday

a new thought stream
of how it will happen
flows into my mind

chills it just so,
becomes light frost

Why only yesterday
you called past midnight
thinking it day,

ravaging the freezer
at 4 am, shouting
Dinner's ready

and me, so happy
you still call
my name

Green is grief. This is the first piece of advice my mother shared after I got engaged. Lucky for me, the only green I'd bought was frosting on the engagement cake, so I only had to pay $40 to fix it last minute. That was a lot of money in those days.

At college, don't try to sound awake at 3 am even when you're phoned by the only boy who's glanced your way the whole semester. Tell him you were sleeping, even if your pulse is racing and your body craves warmth. In ten years, you will not want to rise at that hour to breast-feed your own son, your flesh and blood. Save your energy.

If you get a mysterious sore on your crotch junior year, don't text a picture to your mother and talk about what a nice boy Mr. 3 am is, a boy who you're certain doesn't have any STDs. Go to the clinic. It's probably a stress-related pimple, so don't make the stress worse by forcing it upon your mother.

Cry when a man breaks your heart, but only for a day. My grandmother-she never dated-used to refer to my bloodshot eyes and listless state as "sitting Shiva." My great-uncle used to say, "A pity she'll be an old maid at twenty." Try to feel the love in their mockery even if you want to choke them with your bare hands. Don't roll your eyes, or they'll just sting more. Don't chop onions that day either. Let your mother cook for you. Request meatballs.

Enjoy the first helping of whatever your mother cooks, because she will be very torn over whether to give you seconds. You're still single, after all, and you can't let yourself go.

Relish your mother's conflict between nurturing you and watching your weight.
When you gaze at old family photos and sigh over how perfect life was, remember that Photoshop hides a multitude of sins. My perfect white wedding dress had a chocolate crumb lodged in the lace right over my nipple. Because I just had to grab that extra slice while waltzing out the door.

Don't eat food standing up, least of all at your wedding. Photoshop can excuse this, but not Granny.

Tell only your parents when you're first pregnant, and your in-laws if you must. You will want the childhood favorites your mother knows how to cook, and she will help you watch out for health hazards like mackerel and Caesar dressing. Do not let your mother-in-law take you into a knitting store for bunting yarn at any point. The excitement is not worth your mother's rebuke of tempting the evil eye.

Take the utmost physical precautions, but do not believe for a minute you're actually getting a baby until he's crying in your arms.

In the same vein, don't find out whether you're having a boy or a girl. Buy a gender-neutral layette. No green, though. Babies look so cute in yellow, even if they're jaundiced.

Don't wimp out by getting an epidural; no joy without pain.

Don't ignore the stab of pain when you see your newborn squeeze his eyes to block out the camera flashes. Don't whisper your protests like I did. Don't be ladylike. Be mammalian. Scream. You've just given birth; milk it.

When the hospital photos come out blurry and streaky, display them proudly. You can tell your baby when he's grown that this was your first act of protecting him, of molding your neuroses to his little identity.

You can also admit to him that you were afraid to pick him up in the hospital, not because you wanted to be just like your mother, but because you really thought of him as a precious fragile treasure better left to the nurses than your own clumsy hands.

Do not post any pictures of "Baby's first poop." How could you shame a grown man like that?

Take pictures of your naked baby-how can you not? Those chubby little legs!-but erase them immediately. If you text them around, you may be arrested. The world is a crazy place.

Hard drives destroy precious memories, and I'm not getting any younger. Back up your data.

For the precious memories that do survive, like the first recording of Baby grabbing at monkey rings in his bouncer, you don't want to be caught bitching about your hemorrhoids in the background, oblivious to the camera. Check the status of all electronics before you speak.

If your phone screen displays a picture of the baby, move the little icons around so it doesn't look as if he's choking on a globe or a joystick.

If your mother seems neurotic around the baby, blurting out "opinions" that you must follow lest the baby suffer a terrible fate, perhaps ending up like, God forbid, the man you married, or if she seems to preempt your every move and every thought, try to look beyond the irritation and feel the love that pulses within her anxiety, like the little cardiac muscle that twitched within the gray clouds of your ultrasound. Take comfort in her. Take pity on her. Take that date night with your husband she insists upon.

If you really want to scream every time she worries the baby will be too cold, try planting a seed of worry that perhaps the baby is too hot. Remind her how overheated buildings are in the winter and how frigid they can be in the summer. Eventually she will see that you can worry as skillfully as she can, that she has taught you well. This will make both of you proud.

When your in-laws do the very things that surely doomed your husband to his terrible fate, such as making the baby laugh while he's eating or flipping the baby upside down after he's done, you just might blurt out something that will make them scowl and say to each other: "She's just like her mother." And though they don't mean it as such, you will regard it as a tremendous compliment. You just might start acting sweet to them.

Acting sweet to your in-laws will surely irritate your mother.

Don't avoid taking pictures of your overbearing parents as a passive-aggressive way to deny their involvement. You will lose them someday-your parents, not the pictures; I already told you to back up your data-and you will search in vain for that captured moment of them dancing with Baby, your father singing "Ring Around the Rosie" off-key.

Remember this formula for vacations: You suggest x jars of food for the plane. Your mother suggests x * 2. You counter with x * 4. Your mother agrees, packing everything in her carry-on because she loves to struggle for Baby's sake, then gets cavity-searched by a TSA agent for the "unreasonable" amount of food she's bringing on a two-hour flight. The TSA agent tosses the jars until you wind up with x jars. Applaud your intuition.

Don't worry if the baby never seems to have a clean face when you look through pictures. You can tell him later in life that you couldn't bear to interrupt his playtime, scramble the feeds of discovery streaming into his head. But if you're sending said photos to your snippy sister-in-law, Photoshop your heart out.

Don't feel pressure to place anything in the microwave, even if your mother assures you it's safe. Wear your phobias with pride.

You will find the baby has wiped clean all memories of your vaginal stress pimple; the time you called your mother at 3:30 am sobbing and screaming because your "gentleman friend" (as your uncle called him) failed to materialize; the chocolate crumb that ruined your $5,000 wedding dress. That dress, virgin white though it may be, will not reboot your life nearly as well as the little fusspot in the milk-stained Onesie.

If you find an otherwise perfect house that has green carpeting in the baby's room, you don't have to refuse to move in. But if you do refuse, be sure to let your baby know why as soon as he's old enough to understand or at least marvel in the crush of your irrational, inimitable, undeniable love.

JAMES

They put Rock in a big brown box and there were different colored flowers all around. Roc was in a black suit. I had never seen him in this suit. Roc was sleeping. I wondered when he would wake. I hope next weekend we can play basketball. He told me if I beat him he would buy me ice cream. I really like cookies and cream. Roc's mom, Auntie Anne, was crying. Why was she so sad? Cousin Janet was crying too, holding onto Auntie Anne's hand. I looked at my mom and her face was so sad. I ask my mom what was going on. She said Roc died of cancer and was going to a better place. I ask my mom if I could go with him for Roc was my favorite cousin. The last time I saw Roc he threw up purple stuff, he looked skinny. I think he cut his hair. His voice was soft and because he was quiet I thought he was mad at me. But then he looked at me and said "James, be a good boy; one day we will play basketball all day." I asked Cousin Roc when and he said soon. I wonder what it means when someone dies and cancer sounds like a big word.

JANET

My mother held my hand closely to her bosom as if she would never let it go. She shook forward and backwards. The hot water from her eyes hit the surface of my hands intensely. I looked down at my black suede skirt and saw the wetness from my own tears. I could not bear to see Roc like this. This was not the memory I wanted to have of him. My eyes shifted gently toward little James. He stared down at the casket with an expressionless face. I wondered if he understood. He wore a brown suit that tugged his body and would soon become too small for him. He had black penny loafer shoes. His head tilted slightly to the right side. He gave a sigh of curiosity. But I would not do it. I would not be the one to tell him that Roc is gone. How could I tell him that Roc had already played his last game of basketball with him? After what seemed like an eternity James finally walked with his head down, away from the casket. I wonder did he know.