My daughter, not yet three, holds
her newborn brother on her chest.
In this scene, he’s spent most of his life
asleep on earth’s carousel, oblivious
to the hand that’s already begun
swaddling him with seasons. Until.
And in a way, isn’t that true
for all of us? Sweet oblivion, until
it´s your turn to walk time´s plank.
Stare at your children’s picture
for one minute, and time will
pool just long enough to soothe
the place where fear jabbed your back.
Until they run into the room
on too-tall legs, shout too-perfect
opinions that rival the miles
your body has clocked. There are
days I calculate, again and again,
the difference between my children’s
ages and mine, subtract logic
from delusion as though cajoling
time into performing acrobatics.
Nights like this one, when
we´re dining outside, how they
trace their futures in constellations,
how time shovels bones down
my throat until I choke.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 28, Issue 2.
Julie Weiss (she/her) is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut collection, and two chapbooks: The Jolt and Breath Ablaze: Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich, Volumes I and II and Rooming with Elephants. Her poem, “Poem Written in the Eight Seconds I Lost Sight of My Children” was a finalist for Best of the Net. She won Sheila-Na-Gig´s editor´s choice award for “Cumbre Vieja” and was a finalist for the Saguaro Prize. Her recent work appears in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, MER, Sheila-Na-Gig, and is forthcoming in Cimarron Review, The Indianapolis Review, and SWWIM. She lives with her wife and children in Spain.
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