WHAT YOU GET WHEN LIFE IS HOLLOW
mother's biography
I meet myself in the index
...daughter of 110,112
I reach into my mother's head
letters reveal my dad
before he was my dad
my mother's diary
intimate details about dad
when he was just the other man
the man to be my dad
she leads him on
to my being...born
I know my conception
from the inside out
each intense intimacy
the kisses...the caresses
that go into the making of me
I feel like I steal myself
letter by letter
I attend my own
birth
finally I arrive
I dog-ear the diary
here I fall asleep
a movie flickers
my only reel memory
of the she...she used to be
my mother & her friends
all so original
I only an ordinary daughter
words
words catch me
as I fall through time
I grow up
through page after page
emerge in Chapter 21 as 21
letters & diaries
reveal me to myself
as my self
I wander about
the many rooms
of my mother's mind
finally I find
a self I can own
a me I can be
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Brilliant piece of insight into our early formation in thought before love led to conception.