Outdoors, I find gifts for my son:

White, hollow snail shells

Rocks with holes or bits of glimmer

Fresh dandelions. 

On nature walks, his dimpled hands

Point, gather, receive.

One day the boats were all unmoored

 and pulled into the sea

They drifted till, by storms and time,

 they sunk mercilessly. 

I don’t know why your mood can shift like a cloud

why you’re unhappy after breakfast

not wanting to stand on your new step stool and brush your teeth

You’re twenty months and ten days old, my son

and you cannot tell me what pushes sundry feelings to the surface

and you may not even know yourself

Hair mussed

Sleep still slipping

from the corners of my eyes

Coffee piping

Rain chilly, pattering on the tin roof

of the first home which is fully ours.

“Self Storage” read the sign

(a little worn with time, like the best of us).

An intriguing idea, so

I pulled into the parking lot,

meandering inside.

Rain folded the frozen earth in her arms, said

“Let me embrace you awhile. Let us transform.”

A world hard as geode, scintillating. 

Glassy overcoats of ice for all the trees

Lovely changelings, till the branches, with dismay, 

Succumbed: the new weight pulling, cracking, crashing.

Lightning trembles across the night sky

White punches which glaze the deep blue darkness

in shades of purple

(a bit of royalty, a bit of a bruise).

Death kindly came to visit me, and though I first was scared,

He has a busy schedule, so to come must mean he cared.

He stood beneath the lemon tree, which never does grow fruit.

The summer sun shone brightly down as we eyed each other, mute.

I didn’t like driving through the storm,

through the thundering heart of it,

Yet made it home

and in the doing,

Found triumph.

My baby slurped at his bottle with a commendable, if not alarming, focus and ferocity. One would think he hadn’t eaten in ages, when in actuality it was more like two hours. Towards the end of the bottle, his eyes fastened onto mine. He stared in the unabashed way of babies, then his face broke into a smile. I grinned back, my heart melting.

“What am I going to do, not smile back?” I teased.

My baby spends much time in my arms

Today while nursing he is active

Hands flailing , feet kicking

I ask, Why so busy?

Tell him, One day you will learn how to do things while eating;

a sandwich or smoothie while you walk, drive, work

But now is not that time

Lend me your candy cigarettes

White smoke to cancel black regrets

Steady now, too sober still

No drink can swallow down this pill

Being a mother means life is
grown
pushed
pulled
nurtured
from your body
An essence given to the world
yet tethered to you; eternally, intrinsically

I am eating while nursing my baby

Cradled in one arm

He fills my lap

making tiny grunts, squeaks, and gurgles