the blueshift journal

Wait until night is ash on windows, and charcoal

farther out. Sometimes I walk through walls

without realizing. Wait to slip past the puzzle

of your son's sleeping body, now sideways

across his mattress on the floor, his head

under a blanket, voice murmuring some

old language you've forgotten or never

learned. I disappear into a place I cannot name.

Wait for the bell. I will be inside you. Wait

for my call, my echo. Don't be distracted by the way

your body ages, or how your husband touches you

less and less. When I return, everything looks

 

the same. You carry a fascinating cargo.

You’re forested and fertile, vine entwined

and impenetrable. You’re an ecosystem

independent of him. If I have anyone to talk to,

I talk about you. But your voice is now less

a bell, less an echo. Wait a moment

more to check the basil and rosemary,

the maze of vegetables that appeared

after the flood. Just a throat clearing,

then nothing. Wait to start water

for his coffee, to move those bones

of yours. Two months before the next child.