Susan Zenker - Crib Death

You call me Sundays,
your voice, a recorded message
that echoes down a narrow hallway-
“We got rain, the Olds leaks oil again.”
I bake, chew fingernails, fold laundry
to all the monologues I know by heart.

While I have spent the last eight years
sharpening pencils, writing to discover
who I want to be when I feel free
never a sister to a two-month-old
choking quietly into his pillow,
you have spent the last eight years
pricing lemons and tomatoes
stirring gallons of homemade gravy,

you have stitched a mile
of needlepoint yarn
into brown-nosed foxes
and purple pansies,
swallowed flask after flask
of pink and blue pills,
you keep phlegm
from choking you-

you cradle the pain,
hold it up to your face
like a favorite dress,
in a bedroom mirror
you check
if pain still fits.

Susan Zenker

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/crib-death/