PHOTO MONTAGE ON PLASTIC WITH ACRYLIC GLAZE

I gave birth to all of it,
fevers, baby teeth and braces, head stands, 
lessons, hamsters and lizards, 
spontaneous laughter and posed grins.

For days I have gone through all the albums,
making copies on pink paper of every childhood stage
in some kind of resurrected labor.
I've made a collage on a plastic pregnant form
after ripping, pasting and cutting around 
the years of my children's changing bodies.

I am calm now after a frantic push
to go through their drawers collecting
tiny medals, toys, peace earrings, 
string bracelets, pins and broken watches, 
old glasses, bite plates and retainers, 
even a tire from a remote control car. 
So much has already been lost, 
thrown out or moved away. If I don't glue 
everything down, it will be gone forever.

With my husband's help I measured 
a backing of birch, cut and painted 
strips of pine and nailed a space to hold 
the plastic photo-maternity form.
It fits perfectly, anchored 
with wire into the wooden box,
lined with grey, for contrast, 
I thought. But it is a boring piece.

Even with my sense of design 
and sure hand I can't induce life 
into the pink and grey blur,
muted more so by the confines of lumber.  
It's all here, twenty four years of recitals, 
vacations and the everyday pulse of wonder 
boxed in and sealed under layers of glaze.