The Adopted Woman Gives Birth

I come from women and men
whom I know about as well as I know
Circe and the King of Thebes. And I don't know
any of their spells. My daughter,
I know. They ran a finger
around the inside of my cervix
to start the labor. I pictured
the cervix as a ring and
the length of the mid-wife's finger
sliding around it.
Thus my daughter was
born into a year of cicada,
its rattle and shiver.
Now she is almost 17. The cicada
have come back to buzz
and shake. This young woman
has hair like a tornado.
Those others before me
were Odysseus’s men,
the sirens, the lotus-eaters,
people who got lost.
I came from them, I know that.
But I have strapped
myself to the mast.
She and I: we live here.

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Louise Robertson has completed the following checklist: Journal publications (Crack the Spine, After the Pause, Gyroscope, and others). Poetry event organizer. College (Oberlin). MFA (George Mason University). Awards (Mary Roberts Rhinehart, Columbus Arts Festival, and others). Slam teams (Rustbelt, NPS, and others). Full-length book (The Naming Of, Brick Cave, 2015). Trouble sleeping. Tries to be kind. Likes biking and swimming. Hates running. Does it anyway. Loves her two kids.