Sarah Gorham
September 2006

Immortality

The baby is glue, the baby is a drug,
            for she makes us hungry and delirious.

Have you seen the uncles shake their faces like monkeys,
            lips floppy and moist, saliva flying? Ever the boring need to be loved.

The eyes of the baby are lucky nickels in a row. But your age has you bound,
            your sadness a woolen sari.

You are full of stirs and folds, whips and dark layers.

How might you approach the baby? Not with desire, arms before you like Mighty Mouse.
            Nor with entitlement, scary eyebrows, or castle armaments of teeth.

Make yourself small. The baby is an Alice in Wonderland door, tiny beneath the hedges.

She is naked, skin like whipped sugar, fingers pink fiddleheads.
            Remember that shoe store Happy Feet and Smiling Toes?

Remember when the names for little things weren’t sickening?

Touch that fantastic little foot. The baby is an implant, a fresh cutting.
            She will take. She will take you away with her.

First published in The Gettysburg Review.