Elizabeth Metzger

Congenital

As they tranquilized him before surgery

along with comforts        I whispered

my doubts in his ear

like burning love letters

to earn a new beginning

already his birth              a removal

Relatives praise he won’t even remember

I count him down

After      where the cartilage had been

an empty space called “normal”

where he hears me for the first time

too clearly

are you listening?      answer my question

He has to be born

He has to be born while he’s living

Just A Belief

At breakfast I hear our son telling our daughter in a few years they will be in the car with daddy and

a monster will also be there. Does he mean me, or does he predict someone taking my place, I

wonder all day while he is at Kindergarten, more inquisitive than ever, more paranoid.

He comes home and says he didn’t eat lunch because there was lead in it. He tells me his friend said

foxgloves are poisonous. We look up photos of the flowers on my phone. I can’t help seeing them

as pointing up, or can’t help associating directions with meaning. I feel him electric to touch one.

Every time I sigh at their beauty, he wiggles in their danger.

He goes to bed too late after hurling all the pillows off the couch, storming all the ornaments down.

He says he hates this family, wants a new one. I tuck him in and he says he will not try his best,

besides Santa is just his friend’s parents. That’s ridiculous, I flinch, how would they fit down the chimney? He

tells me the chimney has nothing to do with it. It’s just a belief, he says.

Downstairs I am careful not to creak the floors and be called back. The Christmas tree lights are on.

We leave them on all night. Every year someone’s tree catches on fire, which might be beautiful, I

think, if it weren’t in a living room. With all the mess of the season, I can’t bear to sit down. This

living room might be beautiful, I think, as a memory.