Loving the “I”

BY KIM MOORE

After Sharon Olds’s “Take the I Out”I also love the I, the way it holds everythingI almost know in one great stroke, one great love,I draw it, though I don’t give it flitches,have never heard the word until I read it.Someone tells me about a village called Great Dunmowwhere the married couple judged the happiestare awarded a flitch of bacon. It sounds like hell,I say, knowing how competitive I am,imagining dragging my husband down the road,our smiles stretched across our faces,never being able to argue—can you imagine,having to testify: no I have never regrettedour marriage, not for one second, one minute,one hour, one day. Our arguments taking placein whispers, frantic snakes of words writhingin the air between us. All this is to say, my Idoes not have flitches. I teach it to my daughter,top to bottom, I, I, I, the easiest letterin the world to write. We draw a line of themmarching along the page. I tell her I love youand she sings out I love you too Mummy.It takes time for a child to refer to themselvesas I instead of in the third person by name.But the I is singing in her blood now.I know what I was before she came.Now my I throws down its spearand says I will stand here, and here,and here, and the I is a stem of a notewithout a head, the I is a missing table leg,the I is running through my poemlike golden thread, look, here I amtrying to write whilst she shouts again and againMummy, look at me! I am here!walk hilly paths home any longer.            How did they capture you in            solid stone rolled into a greenvalley? Yes, that’s right—rolled!            But first stones were rounded.            No, sacred work is never easy.My Olmec brothers, I saw you            with my own eyes, true & dark,            in the Museum of Archaeologyof Mexico City, tall & righteous,            & I love the red-hot peppers            baked into your maize bread.