Our Andromeda by Brenda Shaughnessy Read Free Book Online Page B

problem of an injured child,
    and I have an uncomfortable,
    oozing rage, as if I’d pissed myself

    and had to sit in it. Rage that those
    who are so fearful of my pain are the ones
    who will be most spared it in their own lives.

    Let them be poor, then, let them continue
    their sexless marriages! Give them
    a number of “scares” after which

    everything will be fine. A surgery or two.
    Misery. Even give them the illnesses
    and deaths of their own worthless

    parents. These are the mute friends
    whose children will be spared.
    May they suffer every other misfortune!

    I probably shouldn’t be telling you
    such ugly, monstrous things, Cal,
    and I’m not. I’m telling the Andromedans,

    to plea for a place in their galaxy.
    I want to tell them
I am among weak
    people here, and I am strong,

    and I don’t want to be strong anymore.
    Let me be weak in your world,
    among kind people who are not afraid
.

    We’ll just have to convince them
    that we belong there, Cal, though I’m worried.
    I’ve become bitter and angry,

    not at all the kind of citizen I imagine
    they’d honor with a new beginning.
    But then, “beginning” begins with “beg.”

    â€¢

    Okay, the truth?

    I’ve been wrong or I’ve been lying
    or I’ve been ignorant. It doesn’t matter
    which. But now it’s time to give it up.

    You came from Andromeda, Cal,
    that other galaxy. Came to me, to us,
    the moment you were born,

    when the membrane between
    worlds snapped and all that alien love
    flooded my body. It came from you.

    There was awful confusion because
    you didn’t seem to be of this world
    and the ordinary humans

    didn’t know what to do. Not even me.
    Mommy and her stories, those fairy
    tales we have here,

    wretched and unending, children
    lost in the woods. No wonder you’ve
    always looked at me so quizzically,

    a story like that is too tiny to contain
    Andromedan you, lost in the Milky Way,
    magical boy weak from his first

    intergalactic journey to my arms.
    I found you, didn’t I? I am here.
    We found each other, we are here.

    And here is where we belong, for here
    is where you are you. Exactly you.
    Not some other boy in some other world.

    I was wrong to mourn so,
he deserves
    better
and so forth. You are better.
    Better than any lesser truth I could invent.

    I opened my eyes from that long dream
    to find you here, my perfect child.
    You taught me the truth, Cal.

    Accept the truth from whoever gives it,
    the ancients said to your people.
    The truth is you are the truth,

    a child born to a liar who is learning
    to change. A dashing boy who may never
    walk who traveled so far

    to be here. A joyful boy who may never
    talk who ruthlessly teaches
    the teacher the truth

    about where children really live.
    Where you are alive. You are the most
    perfect Calvin Makoto Teicher

    of the Universe, a tough, funny
    beauty of a boy who holds my hand
    and blinks his eyes until I’m

    excruciated, mad with love.
    How hard it was for you to convince
    me that I deserved that love.

    My glorious son! A mother’s boast
    is never merely delusion. A mother
    knows, if she can forgive herself

    for not knowing. I know now, Cal.
    Your frail arms are perfect arms.
    Your uncertain eyes, perfect eyes.

    Your anguish, your illness, your pain.
    Your difficulty, your discovery. Your joy
    is my joy and it is a perfect, boundless joy.

    God must exist, a God for me after all,
    and he must be good, everlastingly so,
    to have given you to me.

    I don’t need any more proof than this.
    You in my arms, your little searching fingers
    on my face. Wistful, graceful

    stars on a wet, clear night.
    Galaxies exploding everywhere
    around us, exploding in us,

    Cal, faster than the lightest light,
    so much faster than love,
    and our Andromeda, that dream,

    I can feel it living in us like
we
    are
its
home. Like it remembers us
    from its own childhood.

    Oh, maybe, Cal,