green dress

there's a picture from your baptism 
where we're all in the church gathering area
we're standing around you with your pink coral fingers 
& desert grass hairs. when i was little &
there were baptisms at the church billy & i
would press our faces to the back windows 
to watch monsignor pour watch over new
babies heads, freshly dressed in white 
at the wooden table behind the foundation.
to tell you the truth i don't believe in any of it.
yesterday a friend & i talked about
how we want to get our uterus removed.
i don't actually know what a uterus looks
like but i imagine it like those oil cruets 
at the back of the church in the glass case,
all full of thick amber liquid, the holy oils.
is this our way of making sacraments?
i shouldn't be telling you all of this.
i meant to tell you that my favorite dress i
probably ever owned was the green one
i wore to your baptism. it was a soft &
stretchy material. the way it fell didn't 
make me feel too much like a woman. 'M' on the neck tag
stands for Mother not Medium. as we all know
the median of a girl is a Mother. if i get
rid of the thing (my uterus) does the church
send the babies i don't have to hell? the ones
who don't find a cruet to sleep inside.
i'm thinking of it now like the plastic
bags we took fish home from PetCo inside.
what's it like to grow up un-saved?
does the skin develop a tolerance to fire?
i want to adopt a child someday & i think
i'll go to hell to see if any of them
will come up with me, the ones that didn't
get baptized before death, a new resurrection.
god will say "that's not how it works."
& i'll say "when have i ever been 'how it
works'." i'll be wearing that green dress
as a boy when i come to find a baby down there.
i remember how to take care of them from
when billy & i would watch you. your mouth
terrified me & your soft skull. that green dress 
probably wouldn't fit me now. i had dyed
black hair & after your baptism we ate hoagies
in the kitchen. if anyone asks me when i'm
having kids i'll tell them about when we baptized you
& about the thousands of babies just under
the carpet. the devil keeps them safe from
growing up too fast.