N O V E M B E R 1 9 9 7
CHILDLESSNESS
by Henri ColeHear Henri Cole read this poem (in RealAudio):
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Also by Henri Cole:
Horses (1996)
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For many years I wanted a child
though I knew it would only illuminate life
for a time, like a star on a tree; I believed
that happiness would at last assert itself,
like a bird in a dirty cage, calling me,
ambassador of flesh, out of the rough
locked ward of sex.
Outstretched on my spool bed,
I am like a groom, alternately seeking fusion
with another and resisting engulfment by it.
A son's love for his mother is like a river
dividing the continent to reach the sea:
I believed that once. When you died, Mother,
I was alone at last. And then you came back,
dismal and greedy like the sea, to reclaim me.
Henri Cole teaches writing at Harvard. His most recent book is The Look of Things (1995).
Copyright © 1997 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved.
The Atlantic Monthly; November 1997; Childlessness; Volume 280, No. 5; page 121.
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