Complaint to Carminta

I came out too soon —
at the end of the 300th day.

My grandmothers were not present —
my father’s mother chewed on a wheel of bitterness,

My mother’s mother got lost
on the other side of Pittsburgh.

My mother had to bear down without a sister,
no trusted friend, no circlets of magic,

Just a bustle of cold white rooms,
and nuns in black.

She was not given a poultice of garlic and fine herbs;
no one sang to her before she fell into a deep sleep.

She dreamed I might fly away,
slip underwater into the river of loneliness.