Mothers of Beauty
Abe Louise Young
Any condition of being
before the realization that we die
is inauthentic, Heidegger says
like an old man
begrudging children
their playtime with chickens.
And Wallace Stevens says --death
is the mother of beauty--
but I have exquisite dreams where my ovaries
and fallopian tubes bloom like irises:
the mother of death is beauty
mother beauty death beauty mother (let’s drop
the death part out)
beauty mother. My will
has permeable edges
and as much about encryption
and revelation as action.
Joy and grief are transient scores.
The word vagina could replace the word generation,
for 29 mothers ago
is 29 vaginas ago,
from her body’s stolid commitments,
her raging lust and defiance of a dustbowl
you sprang,
ringing your bell down 29 rungs
of the ladder, you made the leap
from the last vagina to two hands,
and from there to a metal scale,
a washcloth, a cotton blanket,
a breast: amazing grace:
a helix: a healing
this pause your place
of utmost importance
Any condition of being
before the realization that we die
is inauthentic, Heidegger says
like an old man
begrudging children
their playtime with chickens.
And Wallace Stevens says --death
is the mother of beauty--
but I have exquisite dreams where my ovaries
and fallopian tubes bloom like irises:
the mother of death is beauty
mother beauty death beauty mother (let’s drop
the death part out)
beauty mother. My will
has permeable edges
and as much about encryption
and revelation as action.
Joy and grief are transient scores.
The word vagina could replace the word generation,
for 29 mothers ago
is 29 vaginas ago,
from her body’s stolid commitments,
her raging lust and defiance of a dustbowl
you sprang,
ringing your bell down 29 rungs
of the ladder, you made the leap
from the last vagina to two hands,
and from there to a metal scale,
a washcloth, a cotton blanket,
a breast: amazing grace:
a helix: a healing
this pause your place
of utmost importance
About the author
Abe Louise Young is an award-winning poet and educator whose work explores creative contact and liberation. She lives in Austin, Texas, and was educated at Smith College, Northwestern University, and the University of Texas, where she was a James A. Michener Fellow in Writing. Her poetry/essays have recently appeared in The Nation, The Christian Science Monitor, and the Massachusetts Review. Her books include Queer Youth Advice for Educators: How to Respect and Protect Your LGBT Students (2011), a chapbook of poetry, Ammonite (2010), and Hip Deep: Opinion, Essays, and Vision from American Teenagers (2005).
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.