Sunday morning before
my son stirs, I divide
the milk for banking
bag seven ounces
for the ice box put
aside a shot glass full
for an offering
*
in one temple’s ritual
re-enactment milk
is flushed down a drain
water returning to water –
hundreds of school kids
on a ferry boat drowned
when the ship went down
a white line of lanterns
coiling down a river
single wave forms
going back to sea
*
inside the ceramic
bowl a jizo sits
awaiting activation,
guardian of lost
children – picture
a puja, a milk bath
a cleansing
*
ceremony centering
on feeding the spirit
a paper stand-in
for the unborn
baby – without a body,
what kinship looks
like when there is
no way to nurse
the human form reduced
to diamonds and triangles
cells dividing
*
black marker outlining
lifelike features
the lips of a hand-drawn
face, grow translucent
when touched by dampness
feeding the baby a metaphor
I fold an ordinary leaf
baptized in a bottle of milk,
cup the edge to a corner
of the figure’s mouth
thinking of how my body
has sustained the life
of my infant son each
day since his birth
I feed the doll three times,
when Kort touches its face,
the dummy slumps forward
*
the effigy is burned
before its ashes
are scooped up, entombed
inside the buddha
some parents
undertake action to
lay the spirit of the unborn
babe to rest – to stop
the spirit from disturbing
the sleep of a younger
sibling, Tomo is our second
child, when we leave
the building he can’t stop
wailing, sleeps deep
that night as the dead
*
when he turns to face us,
the priest showers handfuls
of paper flowers, raining
down above the heads
of my boy, my husband,
& me, sakura petals or moth
wings, an explosion
of blossoms marking
the moment of release
*
the cleric’s robes conceal
the cremation from view,
flint striking steel
paper ignites into flame
the burning body banished
from sight a plastic spoon
scoops out remains
in pregnancy, a healer once
warned avoiding violence,
coming into contact with a corpse
I stop watching the evening
news: turn away from
police tape & bloodied
rolls of gauze staining
the concrete at Third & Pine
*
my body hemorrhaged
for twenty-eight days,
this slow letting go
the Swedish midwife,
described the expulsion
of tissue as a medical
event, a process
no worse than a “heavy
period,” the blighted ovum
versus a life cut short
babes, aborted fetuses,
sucked out in the same
breath put alongside
the choice to take an untested
drug meant for ulcers
to rupture the uterus
*
I dress the jizo
in a red cape &
felt hat, tuck
handwritten messages
from his father & me
into the inside of its coat
a week earlier
I am flippant when
I tell him to write
a letter to our “dead baby”;
at the last minute
I question both
his salutation & sign off
anxious he’ll find
the task uninspired
before the mizuko kuyo
I spy his note inside
the jizo’s box, next to
a toy top, a box of rice
candy saved from our wedding
nine years ago, sweet,
comfort to offer a child
unfolding yellow paper
to read in my partner’s
precise hand, “Dear Baby,
I am sorry I was not
more welcoming – may you
find the love you need”
your father
your mother
Shin Yu Pai is the author of several award-winning poetry collections including AUX ARCS(La Alameda, 2013), Adamantine (White Pine, 2010), Sightings (1913 Press, 2008), andEquivalence (La Alameda, 2003). Her prose writing has appeared in Thought Catalog andInternational Examiner. She is a three-time fellow of the MacDowell Colony.
Author photo by “Kelly O. / The Stranger.”