—after Ralph Angel
You wake me
in the middle of the night, and you
are hungry. You are ravenous.
The moon is moving again. The tremors
in your sides and stomach are small fountains
against my hands. A storm
is passing through: the windows
rattling, the pounding
of water, a tree falling.
I wonder if the world could cave in.
I wonder how much you would understand:
a newborn, your vision stalling
at the halfway mark. Half of a storm,
the tree falling halfway, leaning there,
half of a bed
of flattened flowers, leftover from the summer.
Your stomach fills. You are quieting
into my shoulder, small coos. I am lost
in the beauty of your small hand
around my smallest finger. Your feet
arching, legs stretched.
Others have asked how it feels
to be a mother, what it’s like
to hold you, to have you here now,
and I say—I say
what could be more beautiful than a dusting of crows
in a field and a brown paper bag
flickering down
a nearby road. Your face is here,
is there, in the distance.