;
Your Ex-Girlfriends Ruined All the Good Baby Names
Forgive the litany. Forgive the barbershop
sign inspiration. Forgive the walk in Central Park,
my pitter-pat over prams and kites and tiny shoes
the color of jelly beans. Forgive my weakness
for striped bellies, for onesied rumps pointed skyward.
A man teaches his boy to ride a bike, his hand
on the seat, the cheering, etc. And this tugs me,
opens a well in me, a center. Is there also a well in you?
Or is it only the original hollow, my plain anatomy?
At home, feathery green and bloom has followed us indoors.
Strange how purposeful love-making alters desire,
turns it edgier than pleasure, brim with risk.
And after, we sigh. It’s not the pram we want, not the kites.
It’s part you, part me, a name to whom we might say
look, rabbits! and look, India! and look, the moon; it’s yours.
Deja Earley’s poems, fiction, and essays have previously appeared or are forthcoming in journals like Arts and Letters, Borderlands, and Utne Reader. She has received honors in several writing contests, including the 2008 Joan Johnson Award in poetry,and the 2004-2005 Parley A. and Ruth J. Christensen Award. She was awarded first place in the 2011 Eugene England Memorial Personal Essay Contest, and she had several poems included in Fire in the Pasture. She completed a PhD in English and Creative Writing at the University of Southern Mississippi and she now lives in Tucson, Arizona.