Why not by Cheryl Caesar

                        Andrea Addante CC



​Why not      
                                                                                       
Because abuse might be inherited.
Because I grew up hearing “beat
you to a bloody pulp” and “give
you something to cry about” and I
didn’t want to pass on those dubious gifts.
 
Because I am sixty years old now.
Because when I was 38, my boyfriend said
he didn’t “feel responsible” but offered to pay
for half a pregnancy test.
And I had an abortion, scared of losing him,
and then I left him.
 
Because I remember when the hormones hit
and I bought the baby clothes from Goodwill
and a white dresser from Ikea to store them,
and every time I turned into one street
whose walls were lined with bricks,
I thought of showing her the vanishing point
and explaining perspective.
 
Because I walked all one August day in the sun
across the city, trying to decide,
and my psychiatrist had me watch
a TV bishop explaining why it was wrong,
but never mentioning the soul,
which could not be destroyed.
 
Because that heat has burned itself away,
and now I cannot even find the ashes.
 
Because she would have had one parent only,
one poor, uncertain parent. No village,
no network, just me, one fragile tightrope.
 
 Because I’ve spent my life in search of solitude
and quiet, just to hear my thoughts. And only now
am I finding it, at sixty.
 
Because I am still tending to the child
within me, still trying to heal her,
still looking for the books that opened unto worlds
and for the dolls that came alive.
 
Because I am still too selfish.
Because it’s taken sixty years
just to find a self.

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Cheryl Caesar lived in Paris, Tuscany and Sligo for 25 years; she earned her doctorate in comparative literature at the Sorbonne and taught literature and phonetics. She now teaches writing at Michigan State University. She has been swimming with wild dolphins, and it is one of the high points of her life. Her chapbook Flatman: Poems of Protest in the Trump Era is now available from Amazon and Goodreads.
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​Facebook page: Cheryl Caesar Author
Website: http://caesarc.msu.domains/​ Twitter: @CherylCaesar

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