White Sheets

This poem is inspired by the artist Frida Kahlo and her painting "The Flying Bed". Frida and her painting both inspired me to want to do my own birth art.

I had always wanted white sheets. One day my husband and I decided that it was time to go for the glory of their clean crispness. Not any white wonders would do of course. No. We opted for an extremely over-priced pair from Restoration Hardware. The immaculate bed display featuring layers upon layers of perfectly placed pure ivory heaven whispered our names.

Despite my dreams of snuggling up on creamy heavenry, I hated the sheets from the beginning. As soon as I washed them, they were a wrinkled, wadded-up mess. Apparently, $300 will get you a feeling of hoit and toit, but not a wrinkle-free thread count. Plus, white sheets don't stay white. No matter how often you wash them, sleeping bodies make for yellowing sheets. Disgusting.

This poem highlights my equivocation with the sheets after a spot of blood got on them following my D&C.

We bought white sheets

In hopes that their crisp stiffness

Would cradle our bodies 

In the dreamland only money can buy.

But snickering below us

They yellowed and wrinkled.

In their expensive sarcasm

They uglied and haunted.

I wanted to bleach out their badness.

But after you were snapped from inside

Your soul leaked

Your heart poured out onto 

Our sullied-looking sheets.

I again felt betrayed by them

As they got to swaddle 

Your only remains.

But as your stain fades like a bruise

From dark to yellow

I must beg the sheets not to fade

Back to white.