Chromosomal Geography
Molly Sutton Kiefer
When I am gone, my ashes will pound
into the creek, and there will be forgotten things:
this was where we found the snail together, where it
glommed onto your fingers, your tongue wild
and half-chewed. Or maybe you’ll scatter me
in the garden, unknowingly in the corner
where the asparagus rose for three springs
and not in the fourth, leaving just the memory
of those ferny stalks. Maybe you’ll fly me out
to Lake Dillon, let me silt down to the town
buried by water, and I’ll ghost along abandoned
kitchens and gaze at the bench where I nursed you
and we learned of the earthquake in Virginia. You could
burn me and tip me into the Inside Passage, among
spawned salmon and the fleet feet of black bears,
flush me into the Pacific, crowd against debris.
You didn’t know me then, that honeymoon,
but you were there, your double X nestled against
other hopefuls. My body has been your map, your ruddy
grubby hands here and here. We lie in bed and I sway you
to sleep and this is where you name all the parts:
nose and eye and I notice I need to trim
those mooned fingernails. You show me your tongue
so I’ll show you mine. Did you know the brain is the first
organ to wick away and the uterus is the last? I think of
these things, these places you’ve lived. I almost kept
those gallstones in a jar. Don’t keep me in a jar.
I will love you from all places. You could pin
me to the ocean and swim, swim. I’ll keep pace, print me
into your skin. You could name all the animals, you could
spawn, your X and your X, an alphabet born.
When I am gone, my ashes will pound
into the creek, and there will be forgotten things:
this was where we found the snail together, where it
glommed onto your fingers, your tongue wild
and half-chewed. Or maybe you’ll scatter me
in the garden, unknowingly in the corner
where the asparagus rose for three springs
and not in the fourth, leaving just the memory
of those ferny stalks. Maybe you’ll fly me out
to Lake Dillon, let me silt down to the town
buried by water, and I’ll ghost along abandoned
kitchens and gaze at the bench where I nursed you
and we learned of the earthquake in Virginia. You could
burn me and tip me into the Inside Passage, among
spawned salmon and the fleet feet of black bears,
flush me into the Pacific, crowd against debris.
You didn’t know me then, that honeymoon,
but you were there, your double X nestled against
other hopefuls. My body has been your map, your ruddy
grubby hands here and here. We lie in bed and I sway you
to sleep and this is where you name all the parts:
nose and eye and I notice I need to trim
those mooned fingernails. You show me your tongue
so I’ll show you mine. Did you know the brain is the first
organ to wick away and the uterus is the last? I think of
these things, these places you’ve lived. I almost kept
those gallstones in a jar. Don’t keep me in a jar.
I will love you from all places. You could pin
me to the ocean and swim, swim. I’ll keep pace, print me
into your skin. You could name all the animals, you could
spawn, your X and your X, an alphabet born.
Working notes
This poem comes from a manuscript in circulation with publishers titled Pine on issues of the body and (in)fertility, and the ways in which language can alter an experience.
About the author
Molly Sutton Kiefer’s chapbook The Recent History of Middle Sand Lake won the 2010 Astounding Beauty Ruffian Press Poetry Award. Her work has appeared in Harpur Palate, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Berkeley Poetry Review, Comstock Review, you are here, Gulf Stream, Cold Mountain Review, Wicked Alice, and Permafrost, among others. She received her MFA from the University of Minnesota, serves as poetry editor to Midway Journal, and runs Balancing the Tide: Motherhood and the Arts | An Interview Project. She currently lives in Red Wing with her husband and daughter and is expecting a second child in February. She is at work on a manuscript on (in)fertility. More can be found at mollysuttonkiefer.com
For an updated list of works published in TRIVIA, please see this author's contributor page.
For an updated list of works published in TRIVIA, please see this author's contributor page.