The day she comes home from the hospital

The day she comes home from the hospital

    Full of bruises and stitches, she stubs her toe on the changing table. This is the first new    
    injury after he’s born. It surprises her, that this hurts a little, like before she was a mother.

We cry for the refugees

We cry for the refugees
   
    Only after their children drown. Only after we see the photograph.

She Didn't Remember Remembering That Song

She didn’t remember remembering that song

    but while kissing her baby son’s toes, she starts singing, Kookaburra sits in the old gum    
    tree...This is how we know that music and time are both made of fishhooks.

How will I get through this time

How will I get through this time

    Because it will end. As will the ember of all that you experience, your very ability to    
    experience in and of itself.

One day, you’ll wish for this back

One day, you’ll wish for this back

    is what every mother she knows passes along to her, their voices pinched with    
    clothespins clinging onto sheets that balloon and billow and jerk.