Nicole Connolly
SELF-PORTRAIT AS AN UNWRAPPED OUROBOROS
I could be my own orbit if only I could let myself die
with my tail in my mouth. Let me instead
slide along the road of hunger, a road
I push
in the sand with my body; a body
one long gut barely sheathed, led by a tongue
ahead of my head,
a tongue forked not like a path that could
take me one way
or another— instead, like a dowsing rod that points to one desire
twice. I would rather see
the world only
in what I can take from it. I would rather
drape
my fullness on anything I see
as red, set my starvation on anyone I see
as red, ask myself each time I bring another life inside me
will you be the one
to survive this? heat me from the inside.
As long as your heart beats against my heart, I’ll convert
to seeds, to roots, to feed your mammal body
to hold it like a hot stone I never
have to leave. I will spear blades of grass, two at a time
one for each uselessly poisoned tooth for this ritual—
a ritual better than orbiting myself—
better than
orbiting the world— a ritual that makes us into
one swollen sun.
SELF-PORTRAIT AS A NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE
My birth was the end of my mother’s life,
a tether to my father so it was never enough
to leave him for a screaming match
over a butter dish, or the statement, “I don’t
really care about your thoughts.”
My favorite kind of thrill seeking is nearly
dying, too, getting close enough to the afterlife
to see it: you, unprotected man; our child,
potentially a bud in an ovary, waiting for rain.
Each time I forget, I go to see that world
again, testing what is heritable. If, like my ancestors,
I am pregnant this way; if, like my ancestors, I can’t
terminate, could I live their death? I could not leave
our child alone with you. I envision him smashing
your whiskey bottles on the ground, as he
tells a friend, “It’s not lava, but we can play
it the same way.” I envision Poison Control
would be the most important family contact,
speed dial #1. Could they tell me the answer:
During what age window is the child’s hand
big enough to open the child-resistant pill bottle,
while the rest of the child’s body is not big enough
to resist dying from what’s inside? I envision
our child finding you passed out the way
I have, and the way I shook you and yelled
your name & your name, he will shake
and scream, daddy, daddy! Or, worse,
he will have already learned to put his ear
near your mouth and listen for breath, to trust
you not to swallow him, as if we weren’t
all three already in the belly of your beast.
And after these three visions like three
shocks to the heart in a hospital TV series,
I wake up to myself in the clinic, still shrouded
in blue paper, knees praying to air, instruments
being removed and results being pored over
like a page from the Bible. She says everything
is perfect. The nausea, not morning sickness, only
stress. The period ten days late, not pregnancy,
only stress; or maybe, a miscarriage so early,
you can’t even name it one. Which all means
I could pretend nothing had happened, if I had not
already seen. Ask me what I learned about
the afterlife, and I’ll tell you that miracles trick you
to stop fighting fate by making the world seem
fateless, making it seem as though water could be
anything but water—even as great as wine—or that
this unplanned pregnancy—the next step in
an unplanned pregnancy bloodline—could have
been anything but the end of my life, even as great
as its true beginning. Ask, and I will proclaim:
If your body does not become miracle, Amen.