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      October 4, 2018The Tale of PostpartumRaquel Vasquez Gilliland

      The doctor is ancient
      and I don’t think
      she can hear me
      when I say, my columna
      vertebral is on
      the outside now.
       
      She asks, do you like
      caring for the baby?
       
      I nod. Yes. I love
      caring for the baby.
       
      And then I whisper.
       
      But how long
      can a woman live
      with her spine
      on the outside.
      It hurts so bad,
      I can’t even cry.
       
      Good news, the doctor
      tells me, staring at
      her notes. You don’t
      have depression.

      from Tales from the House of Vasquez

      Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

      “Nearly two years after having a nervous breakdown after the birth of my son, I started to examine this experience with poetry. Mental illness runs on my mother’s side of the family—with the Vasquez women, specifically—and in searching for the reasons why, I found stories. Some of these are from the lips of my grandmother and mother, some are ones I unearthed inexplicably, from the fertile dirt where poems grow.”

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