L-Dopa - Laura Stevenson

I’m a bright, white egg and I incubate in a warm, yellow light in the winter.

And I’ll hatch on a snow-covered morning, and no one will be awake to see it

happen.

There is no history, there’s no expectation, just warm, yellow light on my skin.

And I’m blessed by my mother, though I’ll never know her, and I’ll never be

lonesome again.

I’m a bright entertainer in a silent theater I wearily quarry into.

And my mother she stands where the characters dance from the light at the

height of the room.

And every night I repeat the phrases, just to see if she predicts the changes.

And I’d die for a word if it’s all she’d afford but she closes up knowing it.

Where I am is right at the beginning of it, all I know I was born with.

Where she is, she is fixed in a prison so fast she is frozen, the air she

breathes is a slow wind.

I’m a tired arachnid, spinning loose in my threads, building lifetimes of

gossamer beds.

And the filigree waterdrops around my head, they absorb every word that I said.

There are no wings hitched to my spine, just an undying urge to climb.

And I’ll wait for my mother, supposing she’d bother to hold me and keep me a

while.

To hold me and keep me a while.