Meghan Sterling
Bargain
What deal was made as I was lifted from
my mother’s body, praised by my father’s song,
a boy, a boy, guessed at from the bloom of my
swollen genitals. In truth, I was half-lion, half-lamb,
birthed a shivering beast into the wild winter wind
as it stirred the long tendrils of bougainvillea.
Curtains of flowers parting. My mother had
refused medication. What deal was made to ensure
the name carried on, gift to the family, to the land,
the palm trees in a procession down A1A. Cue
the music. Cue the potential. The lipstick to apply.
The rouge. My mother had pleased them, had delivered
the goods. The women in a circle. The women cooing.
She will be a princess. She will be a doctor’s wife.
my mother’s body, praised by my father’s song,
a boy, a boy, guessed at from the bloom of my
swollen genitals. In truth, I was half-lion, half-lamb,
birthed a shivering beast into the wild winter wind
as it stirred the long tendrils of bougainvillea.
Curtains of flowers parting. My mother had
refused medication. What deal was made to ensure
the name carried on, gift to the family, to the land,
the palm trees in a procession down A1A. Cue
the music. Cue the potential. The lipstick to apply.
The rouge. My mother had pleased them, had delivered
the goods. The women in a circle. The women cooing.
She will be a princess. She will be a doctor’s wife.
Biography
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Meghan Sterling’s work is forthcoming in The Los Angeles Review, Rhino Poetry, Nelle, Colorado Review, Poetry South, and many others, and has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes. Her debut poetry collection, These Few Seeds (Terrapin Books), came out in 2021, and was a Finalist for the Eric Hoffer Grand Prize in Poetry. Her chapbook, Self-Portrait with Ghosts of the Diaspora (Harbor Editions) her collection, Comfort the Mourners (Everybody Press), and her collection, View from a Borrowed Field, which won Lily Poetry Review’s Paul Nemser Book Prize, are forthcoming in 2023. Read her work at meghansterling.com.
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