Motherhood and Fear in Golden Ax: A Thematic Analysis

Thematic Claim: Maternal Ambivalence and Generational Anxiety

In Golden Ax, Rio Cortez’s speaker does not present motherhood as a simple arc of joy and protection. Instead, the poems trace a complex emotional terrain where maternal instinct collides with fear—fear of detachment, of losing the self, of repeating ancestral wounds, and even of the child’s own unknowable future. The thematic claim that emerges is that motherhood is a site of both fierce connection and deep ambivalence, shaped by a history of loss that the speaker can neither escape nor fully understand. The fear is not only for the child but of the child: of failing to love correctly, of being consumed by the role, and of watching the child vanish into a world that has never been safe for Black bodies. Cortez weaves this tension through pre‑birth visions, daily caregiving moments, and encounters with the speaker’s own mother, grounding each fear in imagery drawn from nature, history, and family lore.

Tracing the Theme Across the Plot

Pre‑birth Visions: Anticipating Detachment in “Fear of Motherhood” and “Partum”

In chapter 46, “Fear of Motherhood,” the speaker recalls watching sea turtles lay eggs under moonlight—a scene of natural wonder that leaves her unmoved until she hears a stranger gasp. She immediately connects this emotional blankness to how she might look at her future child: “I worry that when you’re born I’ll look at you like that.” The poem juxtaposes a tourist’s detached gaze at the Sacré‑Coeur with the fear of not feeling the expected rush of love. The mother‑to‑be imagines herself hoping the child will agree to leave a concert early just to avoid being overwhelmed by the crowd—a metaphor for the fear that the child will demand too much, too soon. This pre‑birth anxiety sets the stage for the entire collection.

Chapter 13, “Partum,” intensifies the paradox. The child is addressed as “Little God, Oldest Friend,” yet the speaker describes being “cut open” and drinking “thistle and yolk.” Birth is not a joy but joyful—a crucial distinction that acknowledges pain and surrender. The line “you locate the tender spots without” suggests that the child instinctively finds the mother’s vulnerabilities. Here the fear is not of indifference but of being completely undone, stripped of the “feral self” the speaker once claimed. The poem ends with a question: “haven’t we touched hands before?”—implying a pre‑existent bond that predates this life, yet the uncertainty remains. The mother cannot be certain the child will stay.

The Ambivalence of Nurture: “Maternal Instinct” and “Écriture Féminine”

Chapter 29, “Maternal Instinct,” opens with an almost hallucinatory hyper‑awareness: the speaker hears every wind chime in Harlem and the hiss of radiator water. Then a child’s cry “suddenly amplified” triggers a visceral split: “I can’t tell whether I want to run toward them or stay right here.” This indecision is the core of ambivalent motherhood. The speaker is “a light. Fed by an other light,” hinting at interdependence, yet the cry pulls her in two directions. The instinct to nurture wars with the desire to preserve a separate self—a tension that surfaces repeatedly.

In chapter 35, “Écriture Féminine,” the speaker admits, “I was selfish enough / that you were born.” The confession is stark: the child’s existence is an act of the mother’s will, not pure altruism. Later lines—“I copycat the way / a mother does but / like a mother I’m mostly / in love with the me in you”—unpack the fear of projection. The speaker worries that her love is really narcissistic, that she sees only her own reflection in the child. This is a sophisticated form of ambivalence: not rejection, but a fear that the bond is self‑serving. The poem’s title, drawn from French feminist theory, signals that the speaker is critically aware of how language and culture shape motherhood, yet she cannot escape her own doubts.

Fear of Detachment and Loss: “Conduction” and “Ars Poetica with Mother and Dogs”

Chapter 30, “Conduction,” dramatizes a literal vanishing. While the child waits on the stair landing, she disappears. The speaker clings to the child’s shirt to prevent a fall, fails, and cries out for help that never comes. The poem then moves through cultural references: Harriet Tubman’s protective visions, Emily Dickinson’s confinement, and Octavia Butler’s Kindred. The speaker imagines herself falling with her child into that novel’s river, becoming the character Dana who must “do anything” to survive. The fear here is generational and historical: the child can vanish into the violence of the past, and the mother is powerless. The title “Conduction” suggests both electrical transmission and the Underground Railroad’s secret routes—fear is conducted through time.

Chapter 45, “Ars Poetica with Mother and Dogs,” brings fear full circle by introducing the speaker’s own mother as a ghostly visitor. The mother appears “dressed in my favorite horse‑print silk sheath / and dripping lake water,” a surreal image that combines intimacy and menace. The speaker wants to ask “How could you” but instead breaks a vase her mother used to love. The gesture is ambivalent: destruction of a cherished object alongside a desire to understand. The mother says, “it wasn’t easy” to enter the poem. This echoes the speaker’s own difficulty in expressing maternal fear. The final lines—“why not take her face / and explain the damned line”—suggest that the mother is both the source of the fear and the key to articulating it. The fear of becoming one’s own mother, of repeating her mistakes, is a powerful undercurrent.

Character and Symbol Connections

The speaker’s journey is anchored by real family members who appear elsewhere in the collection. Byrdie Lee Howell Langon, who self‑published a history of Black Utah settlers, represents the effort to document and preserve—a parallel to the speaker’s struggle to record her own maternal experience. Paul C. Howell, the first Black police detective in Utah, embodies the search for truth in a hostile environment, much as the speaker searches for a truthful maternal self. The poet’s persona herself is the central figure, navigating between these ancestors and the child.

Symbols deepen the theme. Salt appears in the epigraph’s Great Salt Lake; it preserves, stings, and recalls tears—like maternal fear. The covered wagon as spaceship suggests the pioneer journey into the unknown, a metaphor for the uncharted territory of motherhood. The scorpion—a creature that can sting even its caretaker—mirrors the child’s power to wound. The robin’s egg, fragile and blue, represents new life and the constant threat of breakage. Each symbol reinforces the dual nature of the bond: precious yet precarious.

Complexity and Contradiction

The collection refuses a tidy resolution. In chapter 48, “Family Tree at Earth’s Surface,” the speaker searches for ancestors through archives and oral history, only to arrive at a “Nameless mother and her son.” She compares this unnamed mother to “the moon, tidemaker”—a force that shapes the speaker’s own life. Yet the poem ends with comfort: “the moon herself / is affectionately mothered, and so / comforted, I lose the impulse to keep / counting, recording their names.” This is a profound contradiction: the speaker stops cataloging because she feels mothered by the cosmos. Motherhood, for all its fear, becomes a source of connection to something larger. The fear of detachment gives way, momentarily, to an acceptance of the unknown.

Similarly, in “Maternal Instinct,” the speaker’s indecision is not resolved. The poem remains suspended between running toward and staying. This ambiguity is not a flaw but a honest reflection of maternal psychology. Cortez does not offer a safe harbor; she insists that fear and love can coexist, that ambivalence is part of the bond.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does “Fear of Motherhood” use travel imagery to express anxiety?
   The speaker compares her anticipated reaction to her child to her detached observation of the Sacré‑Coeur in Paris and sea turtles laying eggs. She fears she will feel as little for her child as she did for those famous sights, worrying that motherhood will be a tourist’s experience rather than a genuine connection.

2. In “Écriture Féminine,” what does the line “I copycat the way a mother does” reveal about the speaker?
   It reveals a sense of performing motherhood, as if she is imitating a role rather than acting from authentic instinct. This admission underscores the theme of ambivalence: she worries her love is merely a repetition of learned behavior, not a spontaneous emotion.

3. What is the significance of the “vanishing” child in “Conduction”?
   The child disappears on the stair landing, and the speaker cannot prevent a fall. This literal vanishing symbolizes the constant fear of losing the child—to accident, to history, or to the systemic dangers that Black families face. References to Harriet Tubman and Kindred link the fear to historical traumas that make the child vulnerable.

4. How does the speaker’s relationship with her own mother appear in “Ars Poetica with Mother and Dogs”?
   The mother appears as a ghostly figure dressed in a favorite dress, dripping lake water. The speaker wants to ask “How could you” but instead breaks a vase. This ambivalent encounter shows both anger and need; the mother is a source of fear (of repeating her mistakes) yet also the only one who can “explain the damned line”—make sense of the speaker’s own poetry and fears.

5. Why does the speaker stop “counting, recording their names” in “Family Tree at Earth’s Surface”?
   She realizes that emotional connection to the unnamed ancestors, especially the mother figure compared to the moon, is more valuable than exhaustive genealogy. This act of stopping mirrors the surrender necessary in motherhood: letting go of the impulse to control and instead trusting the bond itself.