What have I learned of compassion? Unharmed,
it releases itself as a seatbelt & a bottle of Coke
in the morning. Baby strapped down
in the backseat, head lolling inside
an oversized winter hat. My daughter was a scene
of silver bird-quest under my skin, the starving ribs, until
until—finally—the release & she came like a small
uproar, the deep incision & multiplied limbs. All that salt
& brie. Now I see her dreaming, suckling like wine,
the thin limbs filling & the always-wet lips, the let’s-learn-
about-tears-let’s-learn-about-anything-about-pain green
eyes. Like mother, like daughter, the trim of blue. Like the ocean
we are love, we are sleep, we are these two
repeating souls, heartbeat on the monitor screen,
printed scales. She stole my body for nine months
the way someone did years ago—but gently & persistently,
the sweetest survival sounds, birdsong & a stray hat
under summer trees as I bloomed outward like an inflating
mattress, a portable whale under a sky of seagulls.