Beautiful Boy

Freud and Darwin Talk With
Sharon Olds About Birth

Her legs had never been spread further,
It remains a fact--I split her farther than she'd ever been opened before.
I filled her completely and made her scream
and scream
and that may be why, at first,
she could not love me
the way I thought she should,
the way I thought the world should.

I believe she loved me even if not always or not

all at once.

I cracked her legs open, emerged
from between them, head first, so that she looked as though
she was being pitted. I was like a woodcutter, splitting
the heavy logs of her thighs for winter fuel.

I was a bean, polished and creamy with her;
I wanted to dance in the wine of her,
smear it around with the bottoms of my feet,
slather my round belly in its robust color, until her warm rust-
red oils went from hot to chill. I had stuffed her, and made a
fat sucking- sound when pulled out. I would have preferred
to remain in her warm wet folds.

Look, they said, and rubbed my body, my arms and thighs and
penis,
Isn't he wonderful?