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 sweetness.

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 trailer where a man with tiny pupils
picked them apart like dark meat.

A year ago my son peeled off
his salty swaddling clothes
and spat at sorrow, vowed revenge,
strutted bravado, kicked our shins.
Now he weeps for his wee bird babes,
tosses dirt, reads aloud my bookmarked verse,
and redirects his gaze to the mountains.

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 me.”