Still Life with Maternal Instincts

If the uterus is an upside-down pear.

If the uterus is an upside-down pear

and the egg is this bead

from the bracelet I gave to my daughter

who broke the bead

and the bracelet is all the other eggs

back in the ovaries and this snake

my son drags

around by the tail is the fallopian

tube on the left and this shoelace

or this ribbon or this stretched hair tie

is the other tube and

this play tool bench with its loose nuts

and its four hammers is my brain

or these couch springs my ribs

or this train table can be put together

in several ways

to represent my heart, my son charging

his magnetic engine over the button

that makes it clang and the torn chair

cushion is my abdomen and if the uterus

is an upside-down pear. If the pear,

here, is the still life, and this is the still life,

and life here is still. If still. If still.

If the pair of us said will. If will is real.