Your slightest cry ripples through me and
I rise from the light sleep of motherhood.
I find you tucked in flanneled shadows.
I gather you and feel the weight of newness.
Blanketing you with my self, I pad
into the room at the top of the stairs.
Night after night, from late winter
through spring, we sit cocooned
on the brown tweed couch, fighting sleep,
watching our reflections in the sliding glass door.
We breathe in brine and salt of the Pacific. Distant
misty foghorns and shushing waves soothe us.
I wrap you in another blanket and another,
and we step out into the cool California night.
The stars flicker through swaying eucalyptus,
so close I can touch them. I gather them for your
safekeeping.
is the author of a poetry chapbook, For a Chance to Walk on Streets of Gold (Finishing Line Press, 2024). Her work has been published in After Hours Press, Burningwood Literary Journal, Michigan Jewish History, Peninsula Poets, and others. She spent her non-writing career as a clinical social worker helping people make more sense of their life stories. She splits her time between Ann Arbor and Tucson, grateful to be surrounded by natural beauty in both places.
