Rachel Inez Lane has moved away from Los Angeles to pursue a creative writing degree at Florida State University. Her writing has been in the Orlando Sentinel, Los Angeles Times, Boxcar Poetry Review, LA Review, and Rattle.
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To a Child, I Won’t Have
After those street cleaners left,
I climbed out my window,
ran into the wet street
and hid you atop a giant
fig tree.
I'll cover you whenever it's bitter.
I'll blow on you whenever it's boiling.
We shook on it.
And throughout the years
I fed you the Earth,
but just the okay parts.
I steal shoelaces to weave
you mittens causing ankles to
break, twist, and tear.
Oh, you develop remarkable
public appeal. Coloring contests
are devoted to you, and portraits
get hung of you on every
steakhouse wall.
The Sisters of Mercy
weep under you until
a moat is formed, where
little girls visit, place their
dolls in boats. They break
their necks because they can't
quit looking up at
how dear you are.
When you are old enough,
I try to write you letters
but make them into a tea
that helps my joints snap
into a truer place. At night-time,
I stitch buttons on my chest,
to hold myself, so I can see you
through binoculars. Years go by
and ships set sail in the innards
of my collarbone, parts of me began
to expire, my lungs—they fade first.
Today I am dying, and I hear
as the street cleaners.
hmm hmm away.
I climb out my window,
skate to you down frozen,
barren streets, and ascend
the fig tree
to give you my eyes, offer you
my mouth, but spare you the teeth,
the bruise. And as my organs start
to curl around you
like a helix, I think how sad
it is that science never handled
us properly.