Nicole Homer
No one lives in The Town of Motherhood
but me
says every mother
including me.
I did not see another woman's body
in the room
at midnight
when the children were dislodged from me like
splinters.
I did not see another woman's body
as one hungry mouth
after another
took from me sleep and vitamins, uncompromising.
There was no voice in my ear,
no common incantation
that might unchafe
or uncrack me,
unbloody my nipple.
All these children
came from someone
including me.
When the left shoe is inexplicably missing,
when crumbs gather like a choir to sing my inadequacies
from the deep of a two-day-old bra,
at midnight,
at naptime
no one lives here
but me.