HOW TO EXTINGUISH A WILDFIRE
Stumble out of your fog so you can get a clearer view.
Find an old baby photo, preferably one where you look like a prisoner.
Count the days you were left alone in the hospital.
When your colon breaks, don’t try to stitch it back together.
Let it tell you what it wants you to know.
Let the infant in you howl.
Meet your birth mother and see how you echo her face.
Don’t take it personally when she disappears.
Let your anger catch fire, and shingles erupt on your skin.
Cut off your hair and give your locks to the ocean as an offering.
Pull out the suitcase from under the basement stairs and unpack all your parts.
Give yourself over to acupuncture needles and breathing.
Dance your blood back into your veins.
Trace the helix back to your ancestors with your fingertips.
Cut up copies of your adoption records and rearrange the words into poetry.
Place your baby self in a sling and carry her on your chest wherever you go.
PRIMAL WOUND (IN REVERSE)
Crying and rocked by strangers,
everything unfamiliar and sharp,
like broken glass. My newborn body
still searching for her, vibrating.
I am carried back into the car,
which winds its way back to the hospital.
I am placed into the arms of the nurse
who walks backwards into the cold room
with neat rows of babies
like soldiers in assigned cots.
I am only 6 days old, but know
that death is imminent
because I cannot find her.
I rewind through the eternity
of six nights and days,
alone, fed on someone else’s schedule.
Straining, longing — like a baby bird
with beak open to the sky,
waiting for a mother who never comes.
Then the sound of a door opening,
and the bone-deep recognition of her smell
and voice. She bellows in pain.
Blinding light, then darkness
wrapping me like a soft blanket.
I embark on the slow journey of pressure
and pain, until I am curled tight
in her warm, safe body.
My world is her heartbeat, the hum of her voice,
and the sound of my grandmother
playing piano — a daily call to prayer,
reminding me with each note who I am.
