Make Believe: Poems for Hoping Again

by Victoria Hutchins

the fig you’ve chosen After Sylvia Plath Somewhere in the fig tree of choices, I have four daughters. I braid their hair. Write I love you on ziplocked sandwiches. Push tiny fingers into tiny mittens. I shiver, tethered to a suburban porch as they step onto the bus. I love them so much it makes my mouth dry. When I look in the bathroom mirror and don’t see myself in it, I look away. On a different branch, I am as slippery as an eel. Solitary as a subway train. I am a master of the art of nursing a cocktail. Hailing a cab. Leaving before I’m left. My pointy shoes tap out an endless cadence in bustling lobbies and pristine offices on Central Park West. I know their rhythm by heart and most nights I like the sound of it. And on the second Sunday in May, when I see tiny hands clutching ziplocked sandwiches on the B train, I look away. In the palm of my hand is the fig I picked: you and me. This. We live in a city that feels like a suburb, our compromise between tethered and slippery. There’s a sprawling mall where I inspect pairs of tiny mittens and pointy shoes carefully, as if I have a purpose for them, and then walk away. It’s me making coffee and you eating a banana and me telling you, I love you, I love our life. And I do. I really do.