Amy Uyematsu
The Separation
Tonight I didn't expect that familiar pain
in my breasts, a fullness I used to feel
just before his next feeding —
only now my child is almost a man.
We argued and shouted again yesterday.
He said I don't listen to him,
accused me of not trusting what he says.
It's been a long time since he let himself
cry in front of me —
his tears came from a place only he could know,
the same way he cried when his father moved away,
back trembling like a small animal.
I was frightened.
When he was six he drew a picture of a desert —
there's an armadillo, a thin brown mouse,
bull with black horns, and a prehistoric dog that laughs.
One black and yellow striped snake wiggles
next to a horse with pink hair, and every cactus
stands sturdy with wide open arms.
The head of a rhinoceros peeks out behind a jagged cliff
while three birds keep rising into a white morning sky.
Though we had never been to this desert
my young child already knew its activity.
Later when I took him to a New Mexico desert,
he didn't want to draw. His teachers at school
had shown him what real art looks like,
and no matter what I said, he believed them.
Sometimes a mother turns her back
for only seconds — but her baby has already found matches,
been abducted by strangers. Now my son copies
dragons and airplanes from books and photographs
and I know I am part of the betrayal.
from Nights of Fire, Nights of Rain (Story Line Press, 1998).