Bonding and Unbonding: Poems
UN-BONDING
The first day I said I’m soooo happy.
The second day I said I’m sooo happy.
Until the day I said I’m not that happy.
And another day I said he’s not that cute.
And it’s true, sometimes he’s lovelier than others.
Which means other times he’s less lovely than some.
In the family bed
I have dreams
where he isn’t.
Yes, sometimes I’m with him
sometimes I’m not.
Which is it? — make up my mind.
Two flights up my other children
carry him around.
I don’t know which is sadder
when he cries or when he laughs.
SIX WEEKS
Suddenly he straightens
stiffens
arches.
And his pitch rises.
And his vowel shortens.
They say it’s fear of falling.
But maybe, when his arms stretch out like that
he thinks he’s holding the entire world
or trying to.
Or maybe he just starts to feel his back
learns the extent of all he can’t see.
THE FURY OF MATERNITY #3
“What is it about babies?”
“Maybe nothing. Maybe nature just makes the mothers such that they
love the babies so they take care of them and the race continues.”
But I don’t like that.
I want there to be real reasons.
Real mothers. Real babies.
I want it to be real.
THIS ONE
If I breastfeed this one
even longer
past toddler-hood, past childhood
safely to another woman’s breast
if I keep this one in our bed
stand up, stand over
not blink all night long
‘til he makes his own family, his own family-bed
also not blink all day —
if I home-school this one
be his letters, his numbers
be enough of an earth mother
to be his earth
then maybe the second mind
won’t sneak up on this one
won’t seize the first mind
won’t erase the first mind
won’t turn the terrible two’s
into the terrible five’s
into the third mind
into the fourth and fifth.
Excerpted from The Fuss and the Fury
About the Author
Marion Deutsche Cohen is the author of 27 collections of poetry or memoir; her latest poetry collections are “The Project of Being Alive” (New Plains Press, AL) and “ “New Heights in Non-Structure” (dancing girl press, IL)., as well as the just-released “The Discontinuity at the Waistline: My #MeToo Poems” (Rhythm and Bones Press, PA) and “The Fuss and the Fury” (Alien Buddha Press, NM). She is also the author of two controversial memoirs about spousal chronic illness, a trilogy diary of late-pregnancy loss, and “Crossing the Equal Sign”, about the experience of mathematics. She teaches a course she developed, Mathematics in Literature, at Arcadia and at Drexel Universities. Other interests are classical piano, singing, Scrabble, thrift-shopping, four grown children, and five grands. Her website is marioncohen.net.
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