— “…to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self…”

George Eliot, Middlemarch

(Baby X)

↓

Wary seeming. Right hand raised as if to throw a spell.

Blown milkweed of ruddy fuzz.

Low birth weight, small as

a ladyfinger, its fuse catching.

(Image clipped to onion skin, Caucasian infant, mug shot style.)

Comically round, dark eyes, no pupil visible.

Like Dondi,

the scrappy urchin from

the Sunday funnies of my youth.

His character born during WWII, then Korea,

then Vietnam—

the orphans’ story

always bending by necessity to suit the present war.

Otherwise, any baby,

that specific measure of emptiness. An opportunity. The hardest currency.

*

(from typewritten page included):

“White girl child.” “Healthy.”

“Baby X likes mushy peas but will not tolerate carrots.” “She is aways hungry!”

↓→

List of Names Considered

• Lara (after Dr. Zhivago)
• Brenda (trendy at the time)

• Lavinia (old family name)

*

The night before I’m fixed into place,

he dreams of cradling a red-haired baby in his arms.

Always prone to fancy,

my soon-to-be father considers this a sign.

Given a choice,

I’d have voted for Lavinia—

would’ve enjoyed saying, “I’m Lavinia. But you can call me Vinny.”

(Erin/not Karen)

↓→

(Karen)

↓

Not my father yet,

and first to notice the baby didn’t respond.

“She wouldn’t smile or cuddle. Wouldn’t…warm up.”

“Something was very wrong.”

My brother—(older) (adopted) — and I are questioning our parents

about the unfinished baby book

I’ve excavated from the deepest archeology of my now-mother’s closet.

Studio portraits of my brother in a tiny business jacket holding a black-haired baby on his lap.

Vaccine records stopped at six months.

My now-mother cries faintly on the couch,

as if hearing a terrible story from another century.

“Doll like,” my now-father says, and “They took her away.”

Where is not mentioned, and we do not ask. Upstairs, my brother says,

“Karen…I remember her.”

Ghost sister,

there’s no one left alive to tell me—where did you go?

Assigned replacement,

the closer, called up to finish the game—

I never completely forget you.

Our names rhyme.

(Helen/Erin)

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Healthy white infant, priced at $6000,

paid to the Salvation Army and Catholic Charities.

If a girl tried to break their contract, they were charged this, plus interest, and, of course, the lawyers’ fees.

The college freshman who made me had no desire to keep me

so at least was freed from financial concern.

Though the girls were legally obliged to choose a name for the paperwork before cutting their babies loose

She picked Helen—swan-born, or

unwanted daughter of revenge,

depending on which myth you want to believe.

Most famously,

the ancient poster child for women bartered in a world of trouble.

Adjusted for today’s inflation, $62,318.

My brother was a better brand of baby, so even more expensive.

When I see the bell ringers with their cheerful red buckets outside the store at Christmastime, I go the long way round to avoid eye contact.

Recently, my brother says,