After nine months of becoming that growing belly I
cradled, when you are lain gently across my body
in your perfect miniature form with your paper
skin and fuzzy head, isn’t it like being caught in a hurricane’s thrall—
that spinning behemoth over the sea—the pressure
of wind, the flying debris, the chaotic dance of nature’s fury, unfiled.

Then life dares to emerge from the gnawing ache and wreckage,
and I realize: there is nothing more isolating than the searing agony;
nothing is more perfect than the moment when I first saw you.
Nascent eyes open, your face twists as you try to endure the storm
inside, the beating gale that forces your little heartbeat
to stop.

From umbilical bond to breast, I welcomed the change
that was taking place, yet I never thought to prepare for a life
you aren’t a part of. Lavender perfume, weeping willows beside the
lake, old spice cologne, inaudible voices. Then the doctor’s words
sliced into my reality: “I’m sorry. She’s gone.”

Your father’s hand reaches to comfort me with that shallow
trembling touch, like a cold breeze, fingers biting into my skin with their
feigned empathy. "No, don’t try to open the door; you’re no longer a part of
my story."

My tears fall like rain upon the lingering flame of your carelessly
extinguished life, the only thing that keeps my soul alive
in the furnace of this pain. I don’t want to live in this dying garden
of my life, a silent and still reminder of the emptiness that has become my
madness, this shriveled cavity that has become my languid heart.
I long only for you, like a desert longs for a raindrop that never comes.

Wrapped in your first blanket, scarcely allowed to utter your first cry,
and suffered to breathe air from the one who suffocated you,
you were like a white rose, planted to bloom and blossom,
yet plucked before you even could.

As dawn unfurls, my eyes embrace that iris of fire
shrouded in lashes of pure golden light.
That brightness of flames burning
into the sealed eyelids of onlookers, burning
into the deep amber of your eyes as they lock
with the marriage of greens and inner gold in mine.
Roses surround us in a perfect collision
of silkiness and piercing arrows, while the shadows of trees
begin to dance to our love song.
Above the tangerine and purple mountains, clouds
move in thick clusters, like bunches of white and pink camellias,
and sweeping wisps of wisteria.
As the deep purple lifts like fog off of a quiet
lake and in that moment, we are cast into crimson,
we begin to dance with the shadows.
Will we ever truly step into the light?

Between my toes, I watch minnows swim, sleek
silver torpedoes struck by the sunlight,
dancing like elusive shadows at dusk.
Over the bronzed, thistle-embellished sand dunes,
the children play, following each other
in a parade of silken laughter and pearly smiles.
In the distance, in a field of forlorn mystery,
nothingness embarks upon soothing waves amidst
a furious ocean.
I lean back against the burning sand as the sun
burrows beneath steep cliffs and gives rise to the stars
that rapturously embrace its fading light.
A nightingale flits overhead, searching for a place to call home.
Lost in the spinning wheel of existence, seconds
slip through my fingers like sand.