Channeling Sharon Olds' "I Go Back to May 1937..."

For My Sister

In October 1993 they told me i could

finally come in to see you, while

you writhing, well, you were in fact,

writhed, wrinkled, and the like, but you,

little native american baby doll, i could

fit your head in my two hands

i had practiced, too, with the naked baby doll,

naked baby doll, we put you in the car and

in 2007 we put you in the car,

i can take you out if i want, i’ll take you out

and you won’t have to see me CAT scanned and concussed,

you won’t have to see me after the car hit the tree

i want to put you back in the car,

in the back seat

so i can say you’ll be a good driver instead of

don’t drive, don’t go, don’t grow

you will instead yell at me in August

three years later you’ll say i was never a friend,

i was never a friend

and every time i will say Sh, babydoll,

i’ll make you hold my hand like you’re wrinkled again, and say:

you are going to make me want to be small,

with those hands, with them you are going to

hit me, you are going to become bigger

than you were in the incubator

you’re going to sit in the front seat of a car

you never imagined and kiss him,

he will have no face to me, and i will say

sorry but i won’t mean it because i want you,

i mean, i want you back in the station wagon

i want you in the back seat

where I can reach back and

feel like you’re mine, and

you won’t have to worry, you

won’t have to worry

about watching me make myself big,

because i felt like i needed it,

you won’t have to worry about my performance,

the bow that i take

when i look at you, and you are smiling

with the bouquet, you are smiling

with your head in my hands

i will pick up the head in 2007

between two fingers and make you small,

the way you made me small

but before i pinch, before i make you coo and writhe,

i hit the tree that i hit

because my head—it wanted to hit the windshield

so you’d come, head twice the size,

but just the same, to say: Don’t drive her, don’t go;

in the same place where they said i could come in,

i hold your head in my two hands because

i want to hold baby dolls together,

tiny, wrinkled, you touch my face—tiny, tiny

i’ll be in the incubator this time

and next time, we’ll both watch.