by Erika Street Hopman
I’ve been nursing it without rest
since she first left my womb.
And unlike the thirsty baby at my breast,
I cannot belt my brain in a rear-facing car seat
and let a purring engine soothe it to sleep.
So I keep feeding it even as I drive,
spooning it license plates on the highway,
each roadside sign that I speed by.
Yet as soon as my restless mind consumes these finds,
it turns with desperation back inside
and swerves at stray sensations it can cannibalize:
the pressure of my foot on the pedal,
the weight of my palm on the wheel,
and the chemical signals my brain must fire
to prevent a dire catastrophe.
But dwelling on gray matter
makes it matter too much and atrophy.
Like kumquats.
Not the fruit, but the word:
Round, sexual, guttural.
I’ve found if I say it a lot, it becomes just a sound.
Kumquat, KUM-quat, kum-QUAT.
See?
But what if one got to succumb to that hunger,
that belly rumbling within the brain?
One shot to let your steady hand fumble,
to unbend your arm and let the baby tumble —
not to hear her head meet the ground, of course,
but to reach some spot beyond the letting go.
And there, in that instant, would I find the power
to yell, “Beware! The skin is sweet, but the center sour!”?
Or would my mind count the milliseconds that she fell
and my mouth mash the phrases into kumquats
that it will chew so noisily, so grotesquely,
that I must put my fingers to my lips and scold,
“Shh! The baby’s sleeping in the back seat. Don’t wake her.”
