Domestic Poetry

David Whyte says that poetry is overhearing yourself say something you didn’t know you knew.

In 2020, I began writing poems in my phone. They were mostly conjured as dusk began to fall on another day, when the world was bathed in a new color that I could scarcely touch, but wanted to feel in my bones. It was a difficult year for all of us. When I began this practice I had a newborn, a baby, and a toddler all under three years of age, and each day felt like a trophy I had won. Motherhood is a gift, but it doesn’t always feel that way. I’ve decided to pen a new label for these Pieces: “Domestic Poetry”. I hope it catches on. And If it doesn’t, well, I still like it.

• My Childhood Home

  I lay on the bed

  In the home of my youth

  The sounds are the same as they’ve always been

  My mother’s voice through the vents

  My father’s work in the yard

  I know how the light hits every doorknob

  Every bedspread

  At every time of day

  In every season

  Of every year

  I know which windows don’t have a shade

  And which curtains my mother has replaced

  I left in search of my own life

  I bought my own bedspreads

  My own curtains

  And returned with arms full of children

  And a heart full of gratitude

  For when I lay on this bed now

  I hear my children’s laughter through the vents

  I hear the hum of their toys

  I lay in the bed of my youth

  With the exhaustion of a mother

  Knowing that this is the one place

  In the entire world

  That I get to be

  A child.

• We've All Been There

  How’s the family?

  They ask

  We’re good

  You say

  We’re alive

  You say

  Chuckling

  We’re surviving on Cheerios rubbed into the carpet

  We’re thriving on laughs between cries

  We’re watching the sun come up with blood red eyes

  We’re hanging inspirational quotes on the walls

  We’re doing the damn thing

  Or so they say

  And the cashier smiles and says

  We’ve all been there.

• Why I Write Poetry

  Words are tiny little things

  A tic tac outline an ocean of existence

  And yet

  As each wave comes

  So does my blind determination

  To keep going

  To keep writing

  To keep speaking what feels true in my heart

  In the hopes that

  What feels true in me

  Feels true in you,

  Too.

• You've Never Seen My Hair Down

  You’ve never seen my hair down

  Last night the pain in my scalp led me to unveil it before you

  It felt so good to massage my roots

  After years of tying it up

  Holding it back from your grasp

  You cocked your head and smiled

  “So beautiful” you said

  I felt a tear forming at the corner of my eye

  You reached out to touch it

  My instinct has been to pull back

  But this time I let you stroke the length of my hair

  “So long” you said

  You had no idea that I had long hair

  I had no idea myself

  I had let the faucet of time run my split ends down the drain

  And so this...

  This was a really nice moment

  It was as if you were seeing me differently

  It was as if

  For the first time

  You weren’t just seeing me as your mother

  You were seeing me as a woman

• Poem for a Friend (on the threshold of childbirth)

  You say

  You feel strange

  Not quite like yourself lately

  And I nod.

  You say

  “Our lives are about to change…

  So they say.”

  And I silently agree.

  You say

  “Is this normal?”

  And I open my mouth to speak

  But even I am afraid of the answer.

  The answer is, my dear,

  That you are on the precipice of your own becoming.

  The truth is

  You will die in childbirth

  In that chamber of new souls and old lives colliding.

  Who you were before will fall away

  And you will mourn her in the same breath of thanksgiving

  For the child who has rendered her obsolete.

  The change they speak of lies not only in your arms

  A wriggling, dependent mass of skin and bone carrying your genes forward.

  The change lies inside of you,

  But I’m not sure how to tell you that.

  So I just sit and wait

  For you to understand.

• (Our alone time) at the doctor's office

  When I dreamt of motherhood

  It was only you and I

  Getting ice cream

  Pointing at the moon

  Tickles on the couch

  Cuddles in the morning

  When you first kicked me from the inside

  I thought about what it would be like to smell your skin

  To bury my nose in your hair

  Our time together

  So peaceful

  So connected

  You and I

  The doctor tells me you’re 36 pounds now

  “On the dot!”

  She says

  As you sit on my lap

  And I hold your little hand

  She doesn’t understand why I’m smiling

  On a Friday afternoon

  With

  Postponed work

  And

  A sick kid

  He’s not my only child

  I tell her

  The middle of three

  All boys

  All a year apart

  And her eyes go wide

  So you see

  I tell her

  That time together in the waiting room?

  Priceless

  That car ride?

  Euphoric.

  The one where I could finally focus on his voice

  That lisp

  Those words

  No longer drowned

  Amongst a cacophony of demands

  To be with

  him

  alone

  was worth every cancelled plan

  So yeah

  I guess what I’m saying is

  I really enjoyed today

  I really enjoyed

  Our alone time

  At the doctor’s office.