but it’s different than the usual one
where I’ve been drinking and remember
quite suddenly, that I’m very
very round. Where it’s all confusion
and shame until the moment I snap awake
sweating. In the new one, the baby just slips
out onto the floor. He comes out of me easily,
slippery, painlessly. I think, how simple!
I’m happy as a cow, nosing my freshly
born onto new knees. But it isn’t a baby
it’s a toddler—blond, blue-eyed and smiling
mischievous as a middle school bully
in a nineties movie. My legs bent like a catcher’s
behind home plate, I catch him, carry him
gently, to the ground. He lands on his feet
and takes off running. There is no usual
afterward, no small curled thing dusted in white
pressed against my dazed smile. I see
his eyes, his teeth, when he looks back
before turning the corner. “Goodbye, my man,”
I say to the empty room. To my emptied body
the doorbell sounds like a slow, deep mooing
before it dings. My legs land splayed
on the carpet, wobbling before they steady.