Rebecca Cook
Making Children
Everything my mother cooked
she smashed the life out of--
all pancakes and hamburgers
flattened beneath the hot steel
of her spatula;
all children kneaded into shape,
all air bubbles squeezed out in
the tight fists of her maternal instincts.
I am an egg, hard boiled.
Drop me.
I learned to roll across the floor
without cracking,
to hold my breath to the
boiling point,
to become whatever color
she wanted me to be.
Sometimes she dressed me up
and carried me in a
basket like I was her baby.
When I cried,
she stuffed me with grass.
When I whimpered,
she hid me in bushes.
