NaMee

Draft: How I wonder what you are

Added 2025-02-18 01:35:51 +0000 UTC

I want to get better at sharing some draft / works in progress here on Patreon! This is a poem I've been tinkering with, and shows up in my book manuscript. I wrote it during a workshop for adoptees with my friend Lee Herrick (another adoptee poet! and California's poet laureate!)

How I Wonder What You Are

Everyone knew I was growing a light inside my body, so they gave me gifts:
chenille socks and quilted blankets and tear-free shampoo. Even its end
would be powdered in lavender

I did vinyasas I bent my spine I gazed forward
I bought a carseat I did not drink shots I folded blankets
Every morning I swallowed a banana tree.
I wrote the first poem and the middle poem and the last poem we would give it.

The day I pushed a sunrise into the room, all our records were bathed in gold
His birth such a wonder, I have a certificate.

They say they grow up fast but I remember the first
hundred days in slow motion. The tide
of the faucet water, my hand the moon, how far
from drowning he could ever be. I saw a thousand
blinks. One million breaths. His little boat lips d r i f t i n g

He laid on the beach under my chin, I stargazed into the top of his head.
Twinkle, twinkle, diamond sky baby

These things I did because I knew I would keep him.

An orphan takes forty weeks to make the face they face you with
It is not a surprise when they see you and see you.

How did my birthmother prepare

What kind of planet did she give birth to

What songs did she sing until she didn't