“Baby Shower” by Mary Lou Buschi (Poetry ’04)

We went in knowing we were hated through a cellophane prism of light. Bags with bears, a fox, an elephant in a box, a clothesline hung with tiny clothespins. Mothers floating in and out, the uterine fluid buoying us all. When the current turns to riptide, speaking different languages of love, a mother’s mother offers me a slice of baby cake. I ate. I ate and ate—ignoring the soft belly, the light pink icing, whipped cream frothing from its center.