In a Heartbeat

Sometimes people ask me if I want to be a mother someday.

I think about it and I think:

I can’t see myself getting big and round

and a baby popping out of me. I can’t imagine

dressing her up the way I would’ve dressed myself up

if I thought I was pretty.

Sending her to school,

making her take piano lessons,

just like I did when I was little.

I most definitely can’t imagine anything beyond that.

So when people ask me,

Do you want to be a mother someday?

I just say, I want to be

Mother of the World

because then I wouldn’t have to lose sleep over

a crying, pooping, burping, drooling, peeing bundle of flesh,

I would lose sleep

over the starving people in Africa

or from stopping global warming

or from finding a cure for cancer

or from giving money away to everyone who needs it

and from building libraries

and from mulling over the mysteries of life and turning them into

poems.

And whoever asked me would

look at me funny

and leave but I don’t care because

I’m happy and I’m going to be Mother of the World.

…

But now I think

it’s not all too fair to my mother

for me to say all that because when

I was born and when

my little sister was born and when

my baby sister was born,

and she held each of us in turn to her heart

and she looked at my dad and they knew—

they both just knew—

that they were holding the whole world in their hands.