Could I unthink you,
little heart,
what would I do?
throw you out
with last night's garbage,
undo my own decisions,
my own flesh
& commit you to the void
again?

Fortunately,
it is not my problem.
You hold on, beating
like a little clock,
Swiss in your precision,
Japanese in your tenacity,
& already having
your own karma,

while I, with my half-
hearted maternal urges,
my uncertainty that any creature
ever really creates
another (unless it be
herself) know you
as God's poem
& myself merely as publisher,
as midwife,
as impresario,
oh, even, if you will,
as loathèd producer
of your Grand Spectacle:
you are the star,
& like your humblest fan,
I wonder
(gazing at your image
on the screen)
who you really are.

© Erica Mann Jong

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