as i was born in a margin--

my earliest memory is laying 
akimbo in a margin-- i was conceived
before my parents knew each other's
shoe sizes-- i was written
in the margin poetry of my grandmother
who made use of all the white spaces
surrounding the crossword 
puzzle-- 

it is sunday morning
& she drinks coffee & looks
out the bay window at the tree that
would grow into a shoulder 
for me to rest on when i would
someday visit my great aunt's house
wearing a soft body--
she writes lightly--a graphite kiss-- 
"And my grand daughter will
cut her hair"
& so i was made-- a notion--
a metaphor--

later my other grandmother
would write out the thickness
of my legs in a stack of recipes
on index cards--
pull this string-bean hair
out of the margins.

oh here
i rest-- here i found the dark
comfort of existing only
as a poem-- 

there are nights
when i remember my own
conception-- i look for
a newspaper-- tuck myself
in the square of a crossword
puzzle-- close the lid on
myself until all is quiet
& black--

we don't thank our grandmother's
enough--
she was a writer they always
tell me--
& when i write down your
conversations on napkins
& pause at the hem of the stairwell
to remember the 
first line of a poem unwritten
i remake this body she started
with a pencil 
in a margin-- 

aren't we all
the bodies to emerge from
someone else's idea?

i look out the same bay window
-- i grow thick thighs
& plant string bean hair--

i am the grand daughter
who fits in small places
& likes to feel loneliness
fill an empty room--
so i lay with my hair cut around
my-- my grandmother with her 
legs crossed--
holding me-- & calling calling
calling me
daughter--