Think of Me Like This by Anya Johnson
"Then the train arrives, rearranging our hair with a wet sigh."
Think of Me Like This
by Anya Johnson
Sometimes I tell a man I’m undecided about children to seem more like someone he would have children with. I’ve never been one of those women, I say, shrugging in the dim heat of the platform. Then the train arrives, rearranging our hair with a wet sigh, the tail of the thought its own internal weather. The thing is, I want him to imagine me a mother, a reluctant one, surprised at the moon of my belly. Have you ever had a man tell you, I want to put a baby in you? Have you felt the ripple of his mouth giving you what he thought you wanted? These days, I’m trying to be more like water. Water isn’t afraid. It doesn’t hesitate. It carries anything. But all I know of love is that distance is kind. And all I know of mothering I learned from my mother, just like anyone else.
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I read a lot of poetry, to me this is a very new voice, not just new wine skin, it's something else altogether like no one else--idea image metaphor. The train line slays me. I cannot wait to read more from her. Thank you so much Anya Johnson and ONLY POEMS. So inspiring to read this kind of talent.
There is much about this poem I love—see above—but it screams ambiguity, maybe even fear. Which is maybe the point. Full disclosure—while I’m a man who cannot relate personally to this poem, I know women who probably can. But I AM a poet, and so I need not understand a poem in order to feel its power. Thank you.