Tag: Julie Benesh

ATTACHMENT THEORY by Julie Benesh

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ATTACHMENT THEORY

They slashed my mother’s belly
to drag me out; six weeks early;
a five pound tumor; stashed

in the neonatal ICU.
Nowadays they say
the compression

is worth the mild oxygen
deprivation of a vaginal birth,
and, true enough, I was always

extra bright and a little off-key.
My mother said she couldn’t breast-
feed, but now I know it was me−

too uncoordinated to latch,
which followed me to gym class
and numerous doomed romances.

*

Julie Benesh is author of the poetry collection INITIAL CONDITIONS and the chapbook ABOUT TIME, has been published in Tin House, Another Chicago Magazine, Florida Review, and other places, earned an MFA from Warren Wilson College, and received an Illinois Arts Council Grant. She works as a professor and management consultant and holds a PhD in human and organizational systems. She recently moved from Chicago to Black Mountain, NC.

Daddy’s Girl by Julie Benesh

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DADDY’S GIRL

I wanted to run away
with my mother.
She and I could date
around, compare (love)
notes, and always
have each other.

But she and my father
stayed together.
I grew up, went to college,
got married. Since her death

we’ve grown apart. The world
has changed yet part of me
is stuck at 26, the age
I was when I lost her.

I monitored my female body
for mother’s ailments: glaucoma,
arthritis, metastatic tumors,
but I got instead his bad skin
and silent reflux, his work anxiety,
things of his I’d once blamed
on alcohol and cigarettes
that I eschewed.

My father lived another 18 years.
One time with relatives, we looked
at each other and knew we’d both
had enough of the chatter.
and fled like adolescents.

With my rival and nemesis
I had more in common
than I knew, but why
was I surprised?

We had
the same
great love.

*

Julie Benesh (juliebenesh.com) authored the chapbook ABOUT TIME from Cathexis Northwest Press. She published work in Tin House, Crab Orchard Review, Florida Review, Another Chicago Magazine, New World Writing, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program and recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Grant and her full-length poetry collection, INITIAL CONDITIONS, is forthcoming from Saddle Road Press.