3 Poems by Emily Carr

yolk (v.)

he’s gonna havta reach inside you.

he’s gonna do it. you asked him to. he’s gonna tell you how old it is. he’s gonna decide when old is too.

then you’re gonna wait.

you’re gonna stand against the wall, in your paper gown. you’re gonna wait in line. wait for him to vacuum inside you.

you’re gonna listen. the other girls, like a sorority, they dont consider this anymore than the Piggly Wiggly line. for all they know, they could be buying lipstick.

you’re thinking this is gonna hurt. he’s gonna havta reach inside, again. whatre you gonna do then?

you gonna scream? you gonna clench your teeth? you gonna say to yourself, you gotta do this?

he’s waiting, too. there’s a window, a TV, two face-to-face rows of stained upholstery. by now, it’d be Regis & Kathy Lee. he wouldnt watch it; he’d be out smoking. he doesn’t smoke inside anymore, not since May.

you’re gonna do this, for him, who doesn’t smoke inside anymore, who’s out there,

wrapping his lips around the filter, his saliva wetting the paper, his fingers absorbing the sweet raw tobacco smell.  he, who doesn’t know anything about this, how it’s like an assembly line, except it’s not assembling, it’s taking apart, tossing out, special receptacles.

you’re gonna do this, right?

you havta. you are not, you are not gonna chicken out now, not now. the corridor pans out, thins, readjusts.

you are just not gonna do this. the fluorescents fracture into halos. time spools.

you gotta remember what is now, what is here. the light disco-balls, in/out, light/dark. you cant feel your toes, cant feel your fingertips. the line of girls shimmies, sways.

you gotta dance, if you’re gonna keep perspective.

gotta put one foot in front of the other & dance. you gotta find somebody’s hand. you gotta find their hand & hold on.

you gotta find somebody who’s gonna help you do this, who isn’t chicken-shit, who’s knees aren’t buckling as she keels, who isn’t letting the room go black, who isn’t skipping ahead, to a rust-stained recliner, a handful of Saltines, sour OJ in a Dixie cup & a wastepaper basket. you lean over now, if you feel sick, the nurse says. her voice is centuries away, filed behind a metal desk.

you better come back later, she says. you cant speak because you’re leaning over the wastebasket, because the room smells like talcum powder & citrus, because your womb feels like an argument, because you are,

you’re chicken shit. you wipe your mouth, exhale.

I gotta do this, you say. we drove three hours for this. I already paid. I gotta do this now. I cant send you in like this.

you gotta pull yourself together. the words are like a steel trap, snapping. you gotta explicate yourself. the room bulges, contracts. you bowl over, you

hold your stomach & you forget. she’s standing over you now. her fingertips cool on your forehead, cheeks. this your first time, honey? her words syrup, slush.

you gotta close your eyes to make sense.

you gotta lean over the wastepaper, you gotta wipe your mouth, you gotta swallow.

you havent got to answer. you gotta do it, that’s all.

cocoon (n.)

after Mary Ruefle

my dad says everything

gets hurt coming true. the girl blows

a kiss at her reflection peels off a glove, writes I love across

the smoke-scrimmed window the letters glitter under the arc sodium lamps, with each flicker betraying, like any natural law—gravity & ice, for example—

our precariousness. love clings.

like a hookworm inside us.

eats. you have to know this in order

to live: when crawling out of your skin (as if you could

escape what you’re turning into) that bright sail of being, REMEMBER ME all that distinguishes— the flowers throwing away their perfume all summer the leaves

holding in their red—what humans build from what is human