Things You Start

There are some things you start, 
and then you finish, 
like the day in May you sat overdue 
on the couch eating an apple and felt a 
ping inside like a plucked guitar 
string. The next thing you knew, 
you held a red, steaming infant in your
arms in a strange cold city known for its faded
lilacs and fiber optics and Erie Canal that
chugged right through it. You kept your eye on the canal
constantly for signs of your future.  You were vigilant.
“Is it a girl?”” you asked your husband. 
“Yes,” he said. “Are you sure?” you asked. 
He checked.  “I’m sure.”
 
There are some things you start, 
and then you finish, like 
the summer you were fourteen and
worked the sunflower fields in Minnesota
for $4.25 an hour. You rode in a pickup bed
with migrant workers and your brown lunch bag
full of Pop Tarts and potato chips and a thermos of red
Kool Aid your mom had plunked full of ice.
“Decapitate the females,” the crewman said.
He presented you with a curved blade on a long 
stick. “Only the females.” He assigned each of you 
a row and dropped you off at the end of them like 
sacks of feed. The sunflowers were taller than you, 
taller than your trailer house, taller than your town.
You took the females down by their green, hairy necks,
cleanly and without fanfare.  Each broad sunny 
face fell behind you with a thud,
and you never looked back.