SAMUEL PICCONE
Postpartum If it helps, pretend this is the beginning of a dream: our son’s first diaper filled with his last swallow of womb, broken swaddles resisting their mending, so many hands passing his newness like a warm coin, fields of wine on a joyful grandfather’s breath. There’s no need to wake right now. Remember the babymoon in Denver, the hundreds of Monet’s in the special exhibit, how, “The Truth of Nature,” seemed a bad title for impressions of truth a hundred times removed. Beyond the birthing room window, the sun hasn’t risen, the statue of Saint Rose covered in mold the color of afterbirth doesn’t exist yet. Your tongue is still clovering an ice chip.
126 | PHOEBE 49.2