Postpartum Mama

I put the baby to my breast
And wince. This incessant feeding
Is going to kill me. I dream
Of gliding off the roof
Of our little brownstone,
Free for the five seconds
It takes to make contact
With the pavement.
This seems so reasonable to me.
The child looks more like a life sentence
than love. I watch my husband sleep
And wish him dead too.
The gravity of what we have done
Pins me like a sandbag.
I can’t move but I can think
About suicide; murder; flight.
I cradle my son with a horrible sadness.
He needs another mother and I
Begin a list of possibilities.
I will attach them
To the nursing pillow, a goodbye note
Teeming with mother love and madness.
The ink in my pen
Is foreign chemical and pure terror.