two worlds today

When I was an undergraduate, I wrote a poem that continually repeated the phrase I live in two worlds today.  I was referring to that of Minneapolis, the studio apartment of mine with tapestries adorning the walls and cigarette smoke curling out the windows; the second world was Milwaukee, where my boyfriend lived in a railroad apartment, his bedroom smaller than the smallest room in our house now.  Twelve years ago.  Almost twelve years ago just now.  We had our first date July 16.  We moved to our respective undergraduate cities a month and a half later.

I live in two worlds, and I am not certain how to fuse them.  I'm not certain how to find balance between the two.  I don't know how they converse.

I'm a new mother.  I'm a poet.  I don't feel as if I'm attempting to reconcile the two.  There isn't a conflict to ease.  But there is a clumsiness.  So much so that I did not graduate this past May, as expected, but deferred to next spring and with a new thesis committee (as the original one consists of one professor on sabbatical and another was a one-year appointment and the department's budget-crunch doesn't allow funding for her to return to scrutinize my changes).  

My heart is big enough for both, for all.  I live in one world today, and it is a big one.  It is a beautiful one.  I write poems about my baby, about how she came to be, about (in)fertility.  I write about the body and its failings and how language can damage the surface.  I write about sounds in the night, wet snow, kneeling in the grass in the summertime.