February 21, 1991
At the Hospital
I lock myself inside the space of poem just as I did the bathroom when I was three. Mother and father yell and beg and pound for me to come out, but I am steadfast. I watch the pee run over my thighs and into the space behind my knees and down the backs of my legs until the tops of my socks are sopping wet and my feet are sloshy in my shoes. My brother and sister demand news of our mother's condition - our father is long-time dead - as my pen scribbles sounds of ink along the edges of my paper until words come together on the page. I look from my shoes to the quivering door as firemen meander through the mind of dream and doctors continue on - even after the lock is broken. -Esther Altshul Helfgott
copyright1992, 2005Esther Altshul Helfgott
The poem first appeared in SHESPEAKS: Seattle Women's Caucus for Art Newsletter, winter 1992 and was reprinted in The Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Review (Vancouver Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Society), vol 4, no 1, winter 1993.
posted July 31, 2005
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