Michelle Brittan Rosado

Postpartum Ars Poetica I: Room

My privacy as small 
as a strawberry 
seed. I pick my life 

from between 
my teeth. I say,
shh, shh. And I recite 

this poem in my head 
11 times before 
I’ll get to write it. I want 

to be outside. Shh. 
I can 
only see narrow 

columns of the purpling 
sunset through 
the vertical blinds. 

Author’s note: The poems in this series all use the image of a window as their starting point, some in the title itself and others more peripherally. I’ve been thinking of this symbol a lot lately — as a portal for wonder in childhood, an aperture to others’ lives during the pandemic, a view of the world outside after giving birth and spending those early days indoors. These poems may not have come into existence without the invitation to contribute to The Fresno 15, and I am endlessly grateful to the MFA program for my years there and the deep sense of community I’ve carried with me since graduating in 2011. Thank you for reading and for supporting the Larry Levis Memorial Scholarship. 

Michelle Brittan Rosado

Palmar Grasp Reflex II

—a tower of mirrors curving 
toward childhood. No one told me 

the memories would come 
back. No one told me some memories 

would never return. An unending campaign
of feeling. Even what I can’t recall

is in this room now. His cry
before the limits of language. 

Our hands make patterns 
the ancestors recognize as their own.

Author’s note: The poems in this series all use the image of a window as their starting point, some in the title itself and others more peripherally. I’ve been thinking of this symbol a lot lately — as a portal for wonder in childhood, an aperture to others’ lives during the pandemic, a view of the world outside after giving birth and spending those early days indoors. These poems may not have come into existence without the invitation to contribute to The Fresno 15, and I am endlessly grateful to the MFA program for my years there and the deep sense of community I’ve carried with me since graduating in 2011. Thank you for reading and for supporting the Larry Levis Memorial Scholarship. 

Michelle Brittan Rosado

Palmar Grasp Reflex I

My index finger against his palm 
and the world inside it closes.

A flash of neurology. A game we play
in the early pastel months until the reflex

disappears. We separate instinct 
from free will, the gray morning 

from the idea of May in Los Angeles. 
Life, for now, is without seasons—somewhere 

between spring and summer, between 
flowering and unbearable light

Author’s note: The poems in this series all use the image of a window as their starting point, some in the title itself and others more peripherally. I’ve been thinking of this symbol a lot lately — as a portal for wonder in childhood, an aperture to others’ lives during the pandemic, a view of the world outside after giving birth and spending those early days indoors. These poems may not have come into existence without the invitation to contribute to The Fresno 15, and I am endlessly grateful to the MFA program for my years there and the deep sense of community I’ve carried with me since graduating in 2011. Thank you for reading and for supporting the Larry Levis Memorial Scholarship. 

Michelle Brittan Rosado

Emergency Haiku

operating room:
no windows, just the round light
like the last mirror

Author’s note: The poems in this series all use the image of a window as their starting point, some in the title itself and others more peripherally. I’ve been thinking of this symbol a lot lately — as a portal for wonder in childhood, an aperture to others’ lives during the pandemic, a view of the world outside after giving birth and spending those early days indoors. These poems may not have come into existence without the invitation to contribute to The Fresno 15, and I am endlessly grateful to the MFA program for my years there and the deep sense of community I’ve carried with me since graduating in 2011. Thank you for reading and for supporting the Larry Levis Memorial Scholarship.