Fugue, and: Unsigned Letter to My Stillborn Daughter Nine Years Later

Abstract

Fugue, and: Unsigned Letter to My Stillborn Daughter Nine Years Later Chelsea Dingman (bio) Fugue “When Plath’s journals, with their claims of abuse, began to be published, many critics pointed out these claims as not only false but also proof that Plath was paranoid, crazy.” —Emily Van Duyne There is a river, & in its mouth, the holocaustnight I gave birth to a broken mirror, the shard that stuck in a man’s neck.He pulled it out & that was the beginning of blood. The nightmares. Being chasedthrough a small ghost town, windows shut & boarded, only shadowsto command: break or break me. I had a god, once. Somewhere, I thinkI’ll know how to be full & limber & not the husk that held the crowningdark. Not the woman, unbelieved. He hit me. The night the baby died,I was tired of the blank stars dying quietly years from here. I should’ve braced myself—his fists like arrowheads. The glass river, leaking bodies. I’ll fucking kill you.Even now, I close my eyes & hear water. There is no baby. There never was. [End Page 1] Unsigned Letter to My Stillborn Daughter Nine Years Later After Jamaal May Dear body of my body.Dear fluid-breathing fauna.Dear drowned isle in a mine -field of organs & feces. I think of you often. There was a moment in 2007, late fall, while your father worked overseas, that you moved, dividing yourself from me, divorcingmy ribs, forcing my stomach upunder my full breasts. Was it that I always wanted to be haunted? Wanting not to be left is different. I had a son before you & another son after. But the sequel is only a reminderof what came first. Do you remember?The kale & broccoli & hard-boiled eggs.The punk rock anthems & lunges & jump squats.They told me how healthy we were.Your skinny limbs, the thumb in your moutharticulated in the ultrasound. The eerie grey glow of the future I was feeding. We were in Stockholm.We were in Alberta.We were in Clearwater, where the gullsflit about the beaches & the ghost-sky hangs the sea. Then, in Copenhagen, I closed my eyes, your facepressed to my pelvis, & wokehomeless, child-less, less & less a miracle. [End Page 2] The ugly parts of me might’ve been the ugly parts of you, might’ve beeninescapable. Like war & gunfire. As people,we can’t seem to figure out how to livein the same spaces without killing someone to make more room. My grandmother used to say: there is a price for livinga long life that you don’t know yet, girl. Dear amber light, dear angel-haunt, dearsiren—, there are days I must motherdespite the rain that chasescockroaches inside the house. Despitethe breaths your father counts instead of counting heads. I am writing to say that human is a fallible construct: I am sometimesterrible, sometimes fiery, sometimes feral. I am sometimes unable to celebrate the dayssomething has tried to kill meand has failed. Look at your brothers: their footfalls, tinybones. Their kindness as they tuck their hands in every crack,as they touch us back to brave. Here: water haunts the fields.The dandelions, greyed & fraying. Leaving is always delicate. Tell me you would’ve given anything to stay. Tell me, again, anyway. [End Page 3] Chelsea Dingman Chelsea Dingman’s poetry collection Thaw was published by the University of Georgia Press in 2017. Copyright © 2018 Pleiades and Pleiades Press