| My
Daughter at Seventeen I hold the scissors in my shaking hands. I don’t want to, but I cut her from you, detaching the pearl from its tongue-pink bed. The throbbing cord is lumpish and gray — the pulp of raw calamari, the matter of ocean. Together, we bring granddaughter into the light. She rests, squinting and wet, on the cushion of your chest. And you look so happy, knowing that the separation of her body, wracked from your body, is only a beginning. For this thing you had created, this parcel of cells and bones, blood and nerves — I saw your eyes filling with a new kind of love. You are better at this than I ever imagined. Lauren Tivey |
