The Story Keeper

by Mima Wright
First Prize, Poetry
At the beginning,
the story pulsates quietly
and unrhythmically.
As a tiny human heart
is trying to develop,
the prologue is shaping.
In this life I am a hidden little
embryo behind the tender geology
of my mother’s womb.
I am a cocooned,
feeble, human nobody,
inside the vacuum of love,
and privatized particle
of cosmic dust,
stuck forever
between my mother’s
storytelling
and my own.
I am a small inception
of life within the circular
nature of the universe.
I left one story and walked
into another.
I am reincarnated
narrator who collects human
stories through layers of centuries
and makes them timeless.
I am a thief of all
my mother’s
physical substance.
I am an amorphic
blood sucker, anticipated
to be a wanted daughter
and unknown extender
of kin storytelling.
My intrinsic world is
secluded, cozy and
unconscious.
I am lonely and warm.
I am growing and rooting
on atomic architecture
of my mother’s body
and her Joan of Arc spirit.
As the plot of story is emerging,
the beat becomes harmonious.
The waves of mother’s infectious
laughter are swimming,
like magnetic fields
through embryonic
water to salute my
existence again,
and again, and again.
The external voices
are telling me that
my mother is weak and anemic,
but I am still a mammal,
feeding on her
red blood cells.
Inevitably,
I am becoming human
offspring– a child.
After seventy two hours
of her agony, I hail out,
nonchalantly, like a comet.
The nurse’s cutting of
umbilical cord separates us.
Right at the gate of my
mother’s tormented womb,
and through unarticulated
first cries I start the plot
of my own story and become
the keeper of my mother’s.

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© 2013 Fresno City College—The Review / Ram's Tale is a publication of student writing and artwork from the Humanities and Fine, Performing and Communication Arts Divisions at Fresno City College. Authors retain all rights to their work.