Binocular Vision Once Again

What happens to a zygote
who never becomes—
no cartilage to deliver back

to the ground; no evening
meals for the earth-
worm, no morning glory?

Today is your Happy Non-
Birthday, 31 – perhaps
you would have developed

into a geologist or lounge singer—
keen observer of the disappearing
life. I imagine you the way

politicians often fantasize
their voters: illogically and
full of greed. Everyday

I had you and then
didn’t have you.
My insides retracted

by mother, father, sisters:
us two up against four.
And I folded to forever

or to that final number
infinity, where we balance
on bitter ovals of regret.

My spy in the afterlife,
my choiceless choice
like a suicide’s

last wish to disappear
by deep water or blood-splashed
bracelets, immolation or

implosion of the Heart. Don’t—
I transform by that same
double-hinge? Half-mother,

half Jew-bitch, longing for
my lovely disembodied—
my dear body of a boy.

Originally published in Blue Atlas (Red Hen Press, 2024).

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Susan Rich is the author of nine books including six books of poetry: Blue Atlas (Red Hen Press)Finalist for the Washington State Book Award for Poetry, Gallery of Postcards and Maps: New and Selected Poems (Salmon Poetry), Cloud Pharmacy (White Pine Press), shortlisted for the Julie Suk Award, The Alchemist’s Kitchen, named a Finalist for the Foreword Prize and the Washington State Book Award, Cures Include Travel, and The Cartographer’s Tongue / Poems of the World, winner of the PEN USA Award. Her newest book, an anthology and a different kind of guide, BIRDBRAINS: A LYRICAL GUIDE TO WASHINGTON STATE BIRDS, is just out from Raven Chronicles Press.