Rachel
All night you dream of Rachel: her half-fisted fingers and pimpled cheeks, her sticky new lashes, her flannel-heavy bottom in the crook of your arm muttering the morning’s mess. Her mouth round as a fish’s, searching for a nipple in her sleep. Eyes blink, ears blush, day’s first pink flush touches the room and you, who measured the night by infant cries, now turn to feed her the moon, breast milk, a fleet of years, as she feeds you the tyranny of her...
Read MoreLearning to Mourn
Dirty fingers part the nylon nest and search for life, stroke a pair of minute spines, checking the damp, unfeathered skin for signs of breathing. The jays lie lumped together, pink and raw, wet dog food wedged in their beaks. This time last year my son waded in the bay with a busload of first graders, gathering crab casings, gooey fish and bright shells in buckets, all floating and splashing in the sun, while we parents stood knee-deep and absentmindedly watched the shallows for submerged heads and floundering limbs, aware of the forces that drag children under, that led two classmates to a...
Read MoreFlying Tortoise
My son can tell turtle from tortoise and this one’s the latter, breast-stroking half-webbed arms through the air while sailing forward, held in small hands that carry the critter like a messy hamburger (fingers on the underside, thumbs on hexagons, elbows angled). The tortoise’s tough reptilian arms curve, sweep and retract, dry-swimming as we airlift him from parking lot to forest. We laugh at the audacity of his black bullet head which he stretches out front like a curious tourist. “He likes me,” says Felix, setting him carefully down in a puddle. “Animals always like...
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