I remember I have a child, vaguely
He wears a raincoat, tiny pine trees on his sailor shoesI will have to give him away, very slowly
when winter comes. First one night a week, and then two.Stars on one ceiling: fishes on anotherPapa is asleep, I say.
I will always want to touch you, I said when he left me.It won’t happen all at once, he said.First the closets of his winter coats. I braced myself.
It’s a million little things: his skin, the tongues of his shoesI should have never given birth. I feel a color
he left in my stomach when I am alone, a shovel markAt quiet hour, I hear his papa and I talking before he was born
Our childless voices, our love over the waterBut these woods are made of dry paper;
I was right; I could not give birth without losingNow he asks if I will be his mama
for all of the timeIf those are leaves falling down off my orange shirt. God,what blankets will I choose for his second bed. Are the trees
against the windows safe.Once I lost my glove in a city. Somehow it matters then
that I was in love and this had never happened.