it's not the kind of thing we talked about

--my mother said when i asked
her if they had picked out
any other names for me other
than 'sarah'
i guess i had imagined them
with at least a sort of
list-- crossing off ideas
until they circled my name--
maybe it took them hours--
i thought-- passing around
my tulip face into a word--
i asked what i would have been
called if i was born male & 
they said my 'william'
which would become my 
younger brother's name-- 
we were each
other before we shared bath tub
water--
what i didn't ask was 
what they did talk about
if they didn't talk about my
name--
i've tried to figure it out
from old photographs 
of them holding me-- a tangle
of clothe & soft skin--
in the ones from my baptism 
my mother clutches me like
a loaf of French bread--
i know you never expect someone &
maybe they were smarter for
not trying to expect me--
they certainly didn't hope for
an anorexic poet who sits in 
windowsills some nights feeling
heavier than a star but
still somehow in flight--
i trace rings around my body--
the orbital paths of invisible moons--
i like to think that maybe 
my parents thought
about what would happen if they
planted me in the backyard
behind the house on franklin street--
maybe my mother bet i would grown
into a fig tree like the ones 
that had grown from 
her grandmother's veins &
my father would bet i would become
a pear tree--
like the fickle one behind my great
aunt's house-- growing
green pears on a whim
& letting her balled fists rot
into the lawn--
maybe they would
argue over a plot of top
soil & resolve not to plant
me for fear i would be neither a
fig tree or an apple tree
or a pink balloon like the
ones tied around the mailbox 
to walk about baby girl--
i don't want to ask more question--
i prefer my answers from 
pictures where i am small
& neither myself or someone else--
maybe even then i knew i had poems--
but not enough words to put
them into air--
maybe i tried & only clumsily 
crumpled napkins with my slimy 
baby-hands--
when i cried i wonder if they
talked about how quiet i would
be if they had let me become
a fig tree or a pear tree--
i wonder if they talked about
sitting me in a window sill or
worrying about me drawing
the moon closer to the windows
when i was asleep in the crib
with the tall wooden bars--
i have asked my brother if he ever
thought much about his name--
he shrugged & said 
it was just a name & i joked
that it would have been mine
if he weren't always late--
he tells me i can have it & 
i laugh because i already have
enough names & still too many 
to choose from--
my parents planted letter 
in my mouth-- held me close
as a loaf of french bread & 
took down the pink balloons 
tied to the mailbox the next morning
when i was soft as a rotting
pear fist & free
of original sin--