The baby is a living bedside photo

The baby is a living bedside photo

    in his video monitor, in his crib. She wakes to watch his back raise and lower.

In the aisles of Target, a voice: I am a bunny,

In the aisles of Target, a voice: I am a bunny,

    My name is Nicholas, I live in a hollow tree, the words rose up from some unseen
    mother’s mouth among the red shelves. Her friend the poet says, can I just gift you with
    this anecdote. It was like some grand narrator.

Another name for mother

Another name for mother

    is the self elbows itself to make room for someone else.

Strangers have always confessed

Strangers have always confessed

    to her, and now, with the baby, they tell her about their babies, now retired, who have
    babies who have babies. Eighty-eight years old, my husband gone, one of my sons gone,
    just one son left and all his babies here, family means everything. Remember to take    
    pictures.

Terrifying headlines about children

Terrifying headlines about children

    mean that she will never read those articles, never. And then she does, recoiling, wincing,    
    praying.

If she could puree the world

If she could puree the world

    to make life easy for her son, she would, but because life won’t fit into the small, be-   
    smiley faced blender, she plops into it chunks of cooked sweet potato, banana, avocado.
    From now on he will eat what grows in the earth rendered thin, fluid, creamy.

Parenthood is a time of boxes

Parenthood is a time of boxes

    both empty and full. Everything comes to them in a box—high chair, diapers, wipes, car
    seat base, bottle warmer—and is then unboxed. She slices them at the seam, folds them    
    flat, body into shadow, or places them inside each other, nesting dolls.

The midday walk brings

The midday walk brings

    purple shutters. A beige house gone blue over the weekend. A grandfather in black and
    white checked pajama pants, carrying his grandson out to collect the mail. They are also
    in the At Home During the Day Club.

For every swath of green

For every swath of green

    there should be one red thing. Freshly shorn lawn with its red mower. Red convertible    
    parked under limbs greening up. Cardinal darting in the leaves of the oak, reminding you    
    that here is your heart alive inside you for so short a time.

Here are our bees

Here are our bees

    she thinks, protective of both the baby and the bees.

What is the correct pronoun

What is the correct pronoun
   
     for her, for me, for the self. These days, she is more aware of the self within her actions.     
    The woman. The girl. The mother. Me.

She narrates her own actions

She narrates her own actions

    as she does them, calling herself Mommy before her son. This becomes her new habit,    
    casting out a net of language into the future to protect her baby, to encourage the world’s    
    softness and obedience. This is the part of hide and seek where the seeker calls out to the
    hider, Ready or not, here we come.

Motherhood introduces her to this new guilt

Motherhood introduces her to this new guilt

    because of all that she cannot do. You are only one body, the body insists, but the brain
    and the heart holler out YOU COULD BE DOING SO MUCH MORE.

One red tulip

One red tulip
   
    at the ankles of the mailbox. Craning its little, lithe neck.

Dear sweet boy I want to give you grass

Dear sweet boy I want to give you grass

    so I bring the window down into the car door, so I bring you out into the green world.
    Together we will inhale the carroty perfume of growing, of tending, of cutting.

Already with you there are good old days

Already with you there are good old days

    And there is now. Back when you slept on my shoulder. Back when you were a quieter,
    more fragile version of yourself.

The faucet. The pipes in the shower. The window

The faucet. The pipes in the shower. The window
   
    yawning open. The furnace gulping as it wakes up. The awake birds and the sleeping    
    ones. The whining brakes of the garbage truck. These are things she mistakes for her baby
    crying.

Beauty clutches in its teeth

Beauty clutches in its teeth

    that thing which is its opposite. Another way of saying this is that whatever can be ruined    
    is beautiful.

Everything beeps when it is finished

Everything beeps when it is finished
   
    in this house. The washer and dryer sing an ice cream truck tune, the coffee beeps, the    
    rice cooker beeps. These are also voices inside the house.

Now it is Saturday

Now it is Saturday
   
     Now you see a magnolia tree and its pink flowers for the first time. Now it is Easter. Now it is     
     Passover. Now it is now, over and over.