in vain to slam on my brakes.
WHAT I LEARN FROM COSMO WHILE WAITING TO SEE THE DOCTOR
I learn that pumpkin pie
and lavender
are aphrodisiacs.
I learn that the French term for crabs
is papillons d’amour—
butterflies of love.
I learn that the average
speed of ejaculation
is twenty-eight miles per hour.
And I’m just about
to learn the identity
of “the next awesome sex prop”
(which
the magazine says
is probably in my purse!)
when,
much to my chagrin,
the nurse calls me in.
ULTRASOUND
Eighteen years ago, when Dr. Stone
squirted the icy gel across my stomach,
then turned to examine my womb
on the pulsating screen
and I saw Samantha for the first time,
saw her heart fluttering like a tiny fan
with the effort of pumping that blood,
my blood, through her veins,
saw the shimmering beginnings
of the perfect little person
that my body was so effortlessly
knitting,
I couldn’t have imagined
how I’d feel on this day,
eighteen years later,
when Dr. Stone would squirt that gel again
then turn to examine my ovaries
on the pulsating screen,
and announce so casually,
as if talking about the weather:
“You can stop using your diaphragm now.”
MICHAEL AND I DON’T WANT ANY MORE CHILDREN
And I certainly won’t miss
the diaphragm.
But I will miss
the knowing—
the knowing
that my body
still has that flame
glowing at its center,
that same steady light,
that fire
ready to ignite
a freshly forged life,
yearning for its turn,
its freeing,
its chance
to burn
in a brand-new
human being.
BUT NOW–I’LL NEVER BE PREGNANT AGAIN
My biological clock
has ticked its last tock.
And the finality of this fact,
the that’s-thatness of it,
hollows me
like a gutted pumpkin
and leaves me
with a sense of loss so deep
that all I want to do
is sleep.
BAD TIMING
Maybe my doctor’s news
wouldn’t have caused
such awful blues
if Samantha
hadn’t just begun
applying to colleges—
none of which
are within a thousand-mile radius
of home.
Maybe his words would have hurt less to hear
if thoughts of my looming empty nest
hadn’t caused such a splitting in my chest
that in the last few weeks,
on more than one occasion,
I’d nearly dialed 911.
If my doctor
had picked a better day,
if he’d broken the news in a gentler way,
maybe I wouldn’t be wandering
around the house right now
with my throat so tight I can barely breathe,
trying not to panic about next fall,
for the first time in seventeen years,
roaming through these rooms,
drifting through these tombs—
two lost strangers
trying to fill
all this space
by ourselves…
THE PHONE RINGS–SNAPPING ME BACK TO THE PRESENT
It’s my mother.
“Hi, Mom,” I say, trying to sound cheery.
“What’s wrong, Holly?” she asks.
That is so annoying.
“Nothing is wrong,” I say.
“Do you want to talk about it, dear?” she asks.
“No!” I say,
feeling more transparent than Saran Wrap
and terribly sorry for myself.
There’s a brief silence, then my mother says,
“So…How’s the weather in California?”
“Sunny,” I sigh. “I am so tired of sunny.”
“It’s sunny here in Cleveland, too,” she says.
“But with that crisp October tang in the air.
I had such fun raking the leaves this morning…”
“Mom,” I gasp, “you’re eighty years old!”
“Don’t rub it in.”
“But you shouldn’t be raking leaves!”
“Oh, bosh!” she says, “I’d have jumped
in them, too, if my handsome new neighbor
hadn’t been watching me from his window.”
“Geez. You might have broken something!”
“You’re right,” she says with a girlish giggle.
“I might have broken my neighbor’s heart.”
I can’t help smiling at this, but then she says,
“What about your heart, Holly?
Why is it so heavy today?”
So,
of course,
I tell her everything.
And when I finish,
she says, “Your baby-making days
may be over, but you will always be my baby.”
And, for reasons I can’t quite fathom,
her words are as soothing
as a cup of chamomile tea.
AS SOON AS I HANG UP THE PHONE, IT RINGS AGAIN
This time,
it’s my editor Roxie calling
(who’s twelve years old, if she’s a day)
to remind me that I’m way behind
on the deadline for my book.
My heart starts beating
at warp speed
as the usual cocktail
of adrenalin, guilt, and despair
floods through my veins.
I swallow hard,
and then explain
in a wobbly voice
that, lately, my muse
seems to have deserted me.
This does not result
in the sympathetic pep talk I was hoping for.
Roxie just sighs and says she’s holding
a spot on the fall list for me,
but she can’t hold it forever.
I apologize profusely.
Then I click off,
climb onto my bike, and pedal down
to the beach.
I trudge along the shore,
trolling for inspiration,
scanning the chalk-dashed sea
for dolphins,
but finding none.
My eyes drift
to the trash cans,
dotting the sand
like the smokestacks
of a fleet of buried cruise ships.
I glance up and see
a lone gull flying into the wind,
like a puppet bird
suspended from invisible strings,
making no forward progress—
just like me.
WHEN I GET HOME FROM THE BEACH
I plop down in front of my computer
and promise myself that I won’t budge
from this spot (not even to pee)
until I’ve written at least one poem.
But a second later
I glance out my window and see Michael
bursting out of his art studio
above our garage—
his eyes
even wilder,
smudges of purple paint on his face
and on his T-shirt.
I stiffen as I watch him
stomp down the steps
and storm across the backyard
toward my office.
He ignores
my clearly posted
DO NOT DISTURB sign
and flings open my door—
informing me that because I failed
to answer his email about his aunt’s offer
to take us to lunch on Thursday,
he never got back to her.
And now it’s Wednesday
and what must she think?
I clench my teeth, but say nothing.
I know where this is heading.
Michael says
if I’d bothered to answer his email
he wouldn’t have forgotten
to respond to his aunt.
“Why are you blaming me?” I say.
“Both of us forgot.”
Michael fumes a bit,
then grudgingly admits I’m right.
“But, having said that,” he adds,
clearing his throat in that pissed-off way of his,
“if you’d answered my email in the first place
none of this would have happened.”
I glance at the clock—it’s almost two.
The whole day is slipping away
and I haven’t written a single stanza.
I can’t waste another minute arguing.
But if I tell Michael I want to stop—
he’ll say the reason I want to stop now
is because he’s just said something I know is true
and I don’t want to concede the point.
But I tell him anyway, and he says,
“Of course you want to stop now—
I’ve just said something you know is true
and you don’t want to concede the point.”
I am one big growl…
BUT DON’T GET ME WRONG
My husband
has many fine qualities.
He’s not the uptight, irritating,
finger-pointing stinker
that that last poem
makes him out to be.
Michael has oodles
of endearing attributes.
It’s just that
at the moment,
I can’t seem to think
of a single one.
THEN SUDDENLY–THE DOORBELL’S RINGING
Saving me
from what surely would have escalated
into another one of those
excruciating endless arguments.
I whiz past Michael with a smug shrug
and rush down the hall to open the door.
There stands Cousin Alice—
my self-appointed sister substitute
and best friend in the world.
Alice is sobbing,
in that advanced hiccuppy stage,
her tears turning her carefully made-up face
into a swirling abstract painting.
My own eyes well up instantly
at the sight of her.
I lead her inside,
sit her down on the couch,
and hold her till she’s capable of speech.
At which point, she tells me that Lenny,
her longtime pain-in-the-ass live-in boyfriend,
has run off with an old crush of his
who he bumped into at his high school reunion.
“She’s not even young and hot…” Alice wails.
“My boyfriend left me for an older woman!”
And while she pours out all the gory details,
Michael slips into the room with a tray.
On it is a bottle of cold chardonnay, two glasses,
some sharp cheddar, and some Ritz crackers.
He places the tray on the coffee table,
squeezes Alice’s shoulder, flashes me
an I’m-sorry-about-what-happened-before smile,
then slips back out of the room.
I think I just remembered
a couple of my husband’s endearing attributes.
ALICE AND I DRAIN THE BOTTLE
Then, when Michael heads off
to pick up Samantha from school,
we teeter, arm in arm,
down the hallway to my office.
“I was gonna dump that bastard…” Alice says.
“How dare he beat me to it!”
“There’s plenty of other fish in cyberspace,” I say.
Then we log on to Match.com and sign Alice up.
We set right to work creating her profile—
importing a recent sexy photo I took of her
(okay, maybe not so recent)
that makes her look a little like Liz Taylor.
Next, we fill in the “about me” section.
After heated debate, we decide to describe Alice
as “a brilliant, optimistic, fifty-something goddess
who hates taking long walks on the beach.”
We describe her “ideal match”
as “a brilliant, optimistic, fifty-something god
who loves taking long walks on the beach by
himself while his girlfriend gets a pedicure.”
We share a giggle fit over this,
and then Alice tugs me upstairs to my bathroom,
insisting that we perform a ritual burning
of my no longer needed diaphragm.
“Can’t we just perform a ritual tossing out
of my no longer needed diaphragm?” I plead.
“No,” Alice says. “We cannot.”
So we torch that sucker.
This turns out to be weirdly liberating.
(But note to self: never ever
burn rubber in the house
when the windows are closed.)
WHEN MICHAEL RETURNS HOME WITH SAMANTHA
Alice and I are racing around
flinging open all the windows.
Michael says, “What’s that awful smell?”
“Yeah,” Sam says, “What died in here?”
“A diaphragm,” Alice says, matter-of-factly.
“A what?” Michael says.
“A diagram…” I say, shooting Alice
a will-you-please-shut-up look.
“…A diagram…” I continue,
“of…an outline…for…my book!”
“It caught fire,” Alice says. “But don’t worry—
we’ve got the situation under birth control.”
I glance over at Alice
and we fall into each other’s arms,
bursting into hysterics at her terrible pun
like a couple of stoned teenagers.
Samantha wrinkles her nose with disgust
and begins backing out of the room.
“I don’t know what’s so funny,” she says.
“And I definitely don’t want to know.”
Then, she turns and bolts down the hall.
Michael eyes the empty bottle on the coffee table
and says, “I suspect you’re a wee bit too smashed
to drive, Alice. Can I offer you a lift home?”
“I’d rubber ride!” she says.
“I mean, I’d love a ride!”
And Alice and I crack up again,
while Michael stands there, scratching his head.
HALF AN HOUR LATER
I knock on Samantha’s bedroom door.
“What?” she barks,
as though what she really means is,
“Will you please leave me alone?”
I peek inside and find her sitting on her bed,
surrounded by an avalanche of college catalogs,
her graceful fingers clicking away on her laptop
at the speed of light.
“How was school today, Sam?”
“Fine,” she says, without looking up.
�
�Want me to fix you a snack?”
“Mom. I’m trying to finish this essay.”
“I made spaghetti for dinner. Your favorite…”
“I won’t be home for dinner. I’m going
to Laura’s, with Wendy and Tess, to study
for the bio quiz—we’re ordering pizza.”
“Oh,” I say. “Okay…”
She shoots me a glance that dares me
to try to make her feel guilty about this.
But I refuse to take the bait.
“Sounds like an excellent plan!” I chirp.
Then I close the door and sag against it,
feeling as deflated
as a punctured soufflé.
But at six o’clock, right before she leaves,
she pops her head into my office and says,
“Sorry about dinner. Will you save me some?
Your spaghetti rocks.”
“So do you,” I murmur, and she rolls her eyes
as if to say, Now don’t go getting all mushy on me.
But then she asks, “Wanna watch Gossip Girl later?”