Sharon Olds

TRICKS

by Sharon Olds

My mother
the magician
can make eggs
appear in her hand.
My ovaries
appear in her hand, black as figs
and wrinkled as fingers on washday.

She closes her hand,
and when she opens it
nothing.

She pulls silk scarves out of her ears
in all colors, jewels from her mouth,
milk from her nipples. My mother the naked
magician stands on the white stage
and pulls her tricks.

She takes out her eyes.
The holes of her sockets
fill with oil, it seeps up,
with bourbon and feces.
Out of her nostrils
she pulls scrolls
and they take fire.

In the grand finale
she draws my father
slowly out of her cunt and puts him
in a tall silk hat
and he disappears.

I said she can turn anything
into nothing, she's a hole in space,
she's the tops, the best
magician. All this

I have pulled out of my mouth right
before your eyes.

-Sharon Olds