One sun cycle since the sea around you
started slowly leaking to this world,
surging from within me while you slept.
We labored hard through softly falling darkness,
gentle snow, the lukewarm bath.
You landed in your father’s wellworn hands.
One year later I leak heaves of loss and love
into my grandma’s blanket while you sleep.
I blame the world for what I wish were different
and rage against the thieves of unborn memories,
shaking my hands at quicksand in an hourglass.
In blink and blur you are a ball of chaoslove,
our warrior poet destined to present greatness.
You shriek delight obscenities across the ceiling
in words known only to the ancient gods.
With outstretched arms you offer
thanks for blueberries.
Your mouth is open wide just like a gargoyle
revealing tiny rows of marching teeth.
You curl your lips around my cheeks- a lovebite--
and wobble to the precipice of standing.
They tell me you are no longer a baby
but your being will exist within me always.
Your blood-- it still exhales from in my body
in waves of fluids, be they milk or tears.
Last night you broke our necklace in an instant--
the one of Venus pearls, Venician beads.
I bought it from the witch after Helene
to help me bring you into this world safely.
I knew before that instant you would break it:
the glimmer in your eyes and purposed reach.
A mother’s intuition is a power
no sage or sorcerer could ever teach.
Today I mend the chain but move the pieces
and realize that it’s better than before--
exactly how I’d wanted all along.
You made it so. And so we are.
