1.
Like one of those bubble-makers spewing
drooling chains from balconies during Mardi Gras parades,
I am churning out his cells as we speak.
Some of the bubbles detach themselves, float free.
To cut myself
would be to release us both into the world.
To lick my cut
would be to taste him before I meet him.
We will never be more connected, never again so estranged.
He swells, an intricate
architecture within my own—
I am 3D printing him, but I didn’t develop the code—
this little alien I’ve seen in the night sky
of the ultrasound machine,
jerking his limbs in my darkness: I don’t
love him yet,
but I will.
2.
You snuffle your little
wet mouth against my neck—a game, a message—
rapid milk-breaths in my ear
after sleeping for hours alone,
on your back, in a crib that looks enormous
around your small body.
Or, when you’re ravenous, you latch onto my chin
like one of those suckermouth fish suctioned
to aquarium glass—eyes wide, palms flat
against my cheeks. This desperation
for closeness—I feel it too.
I occasionally imagine
a phantom kick and miss you,
you whom I only know well enough to miss
now that we’re apart. Even
as your single tiny tooth grazes
my jaw, you’re moving
further and further from me.