Mother, I’ve been thinking of writing 
a poem about my birth. The trouble 

is that the idea of birth leads to the idea 
of sex. The idea of sex leads to the idea 

of your dark triangle — and a return 
to the cabinet of your womb is an idea 

that frightens me. I saw an alpaca give birth 
once in a field. We spied her expelling 

a red balloon and pulled over to lean 
against the fence. Grass was emerald, 

the alpaca brown, the balloon a ruby web 
inflating from the alpaca’s hindquarters 

until it fell to the ground. I still don’t remember 
the baby––only the way the webbing lay too raw 

and complicated against silent grass. I wish 
you had talked to me about sex. In my mind, 

I am always sitting in the church we attended 
as children. Jesus is bleeding, I am bleeding. 

Outside, the clouds are applying themselves 
to the earth like gauze against a gaping wound.