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Another mother poem: Change

CHANGE


At four in the morning
my body is sleep-heavy
but my heart
isn't an imploded star.

Breakfast tastes good
again, oatmeal
for my milk supply, Clementine
like a handheld sun.

I choose music
over silence, the baby's
Shar-pei soft head
beneath my palm.

My eyes still sting
sometimes, the wide world
reduced to the nursery,
the living room couch.

My pill bottle rattles.
Blessed are you
who revives the deadened,

I say, and swallow hard.


This week's ReadWritePoem prompt was an image, though I didn't write to the prompt -- I wound up "just" writing a poem, this time around.

This is another in my ongoing series of mother poems. If you listen to the recording, you can hear some small sounds from Drew in the background -- he was sitting beside me on my friend Jenn's soft striped couch as I recorded the poem yesterday.

The last stanza contains a reference to one of the blessings in the daily amidah, the standing prayer which is at the heart of every Jewish service. Baruch atah Adonai, m'chayyei ha-meitim is usually translated as "Blessed are you, Adonai, who gives life to the dead," though I think my rendering is also a faithful one.

As always, you can read other people's poems -- responses to the prompt, and off-prompt poems like this one -- by checking out the links at this week's Get Your Poem On post.

[change.mp3]

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