Anne Babson

AIR: BEHOLD

“ Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.” – Lamentations 1:12

I am banging my head against the blue chintz-
Papered wall as the baby chomps at my breast.
With the paring knife, I am cutting my fingers
Shallowly as I score the meat where I will salt it. 
In the supermarket, people roll their carts by me
As I am weeping into frozen peas.  In the bathroom,
I am holding myself around my middle but can
Not seem to vomit or even dry heave it out of me.
I leave them with the TV but am exiting in seconds –
What good mother ever leaves the room for more
Than a minute?  That’s how accidents are occurring.
I am seeing the toddler through thick glass brick
Without focusing on his gestures.  They are reminding
Me of ripples on a tar-black pond emanating from
Catfish feeding off the bottom.  I am ripping hairs
From my head one by one as that chenille-draped
Dinosaur sings again.  I am chewing my thumbnails,
Then Super-gluing on French-manicured plastic ones.
I am burning myself with the corner of the new iron.
It leaves me ice-packing a new dimple, a tear, a rune.
I am painting my face shades of pink before you get home.
I am kissing you hello as if I were still someone you knew.
Your shirts are pressed, rugs vacuumed; dinner is ready –
Brisket and scalloped potatoes, just as you like them.
The children’s faces are washed, hair smooth.  The news
Is on in the next room.  Bad things are happening today –
Floods, earthquakes, fires, shootings, rapes, but not to
You.

Anne Babson is the founding editor of Vernacular, an international women's literary journal. She is the author of four chapbooks--Counterterrorist Poems (2002 Pudding House Press), Dictation (2001, Partisan Press), Uppity Poems (1999 Alpha Beat Press), and Commute Poems (forthcoming from Gravity Presses).