M A Y   1 9 9 4

POST NATAL

And now begins the willed unstitching,
the present I promised myself
those last three months
to transform maternity tents
in harvest colors (October pumpkin, giant squash)
into dusting cloths, and so complete
the metaphor. Though dust
to dust doesn't seem quite apt, given
the viscous nature of origin since Eve,
it nevertheless satisfies--as I swirl
the orange and yellow flags--to recognize
in the weekly task
how love begins in expectancy,
how its arrival lasts.

Lynne McMahon, an associate professor of English at the University of Minnesota, is the author of Faith (1988) and Devolution of the Nude (1993).