The Museum of Mothers is free on Fridays.
I go with Rheim, who is also not a mother,
though she carries around a bag of needles
she bought years ago from an Iraqi woman
everyone called Zahra. Rheim gave names
to each of their lean metallic bodies.
We start in the sculpture garden, which the curators
have named Sorry for Suffering—You Think
I’m a Puppy on a Picnic?
We are encouraged to touch the sculptures,
which are all trees. It is not clear if we can also
ask them questions about the suffering—if love
is single strand of goat hair or needle’s eye,
if the cold rust in my chest is omen
or birthmark, and in the dream, Mama,
you were bleeding and something
was wrong with the clitoris, why?
Rheim threads the blood
and milk and the sordid soil leaking
from the trees and makes bouquets
of small pink cloves. When she lays them
by the sculptures, it is so dark we start to question
the laws of this place. We bury the needles over
the earth and run from the trees
like falcons or dismembered hounds, or wait,
I dreamed I had another mother, can we look for her?
See more poems from Issue 18.1 by purchasing a copy in our online store. Digital copies only $5.
