They say the country is on fire, so many acres in all
directions
uncontained.
I can smell the smoke
but I’ve tried to keep the curtains closed while I nurse and
pump.
While he naps and wakes. While we smile and coo and cry.
We cannot see out to the street but still the light seeps in
to his tiny clenched fists.
Glimpses pieced together from social media posts
like ransom notes made from newspaper clippings.
Time leaps as a ballet, a butterfly.
Instead of instruments there are flowers forming.
The soil warms as his hair grows thicker.
The daffodils emerge and his clothes suddenly don’t fit.
Then the first tulip where his placenta was buried on Imbolc
eve.
The porch lilac buds as his eyes turn from slate to brown.
Now the chaotic peace, the peaceful chaos ends.
Just as we start to get the hang of it, the game changes.
Will we still stop for the morning chorus when an alarm
marks the return of time?
Or watch the cardinal root as he does?
How do you return to work when the person who left no longer
exists?
Maternity never leaves.
I see it in the tiny scratches on my chest, the waning belly
bump;
feel it throb in my breasts when he grows hungry, even in
sleep, even in absence.
Still and always a vessel for another’s entry into this
world and ongoing existence,
inextricably tied to my own.
