Five-fifteen

Girl by Mayfair

Working on a postpartum unit
where all the new moms are sleeping,
flashes of memories play like
a jigsaw puzzle of my life...

plaid Catholic schoolgirl skirts
and shaker-knit sweaters, legs
jumbled on a red vinyl seat as we
drove by our rival school with
our saddle shoes hanging out the window
yelling out our school slogans, giggling...

the ingredients for Rick's
Chicken Broccoli Supreme,
watching Grandad play with
his false teeth in a favorite
old armchair, how
a cat's fur feels
beneath my fingers...

the smell of pot as Jason played
"Pregnant Toasters" on his guitar,
a song he and the band wrote stoned~
at the country club picnic,
Kevin Bacon's arm around me
as we took a picture, bringing me
six steps closer than
anyone else...

the first time I wore blue eyeshadow
and brushed my teeth with baking soda
for a junior high school dance.

the way a coral reef looks
through an opaque snorkeling mask,
an iguana in a tree, a gecko
on a white stucco wall...

the sound of a helicopter
landing near the emergency room,
a Smashing Pumkins t-shirt
splattered with blood.

Spraying shaving cream on
the newlywed's car and
getting the wrong one.

Me in a catcher's mask
with sweat behind my knees
or playing soccer barefoot
or slicing through blue water
in a race against Derek.

Smacking my ex-husband
in the delivery room
for yelling "PUSHHHHHHHHHH!"
in my ear during a contraction
(I should have smacked harder)...

And I look down the hall towards
Birthing Room One, across
from the Nursery
and it brings me back
to being allaboutme,
to Postpartum again
in a roundabout way
at five twenty-eight
where I just...a.m.

Lori Beal

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Five-fifteen