Home Is Where You Are (2016)

I turn to see the back of you swaddled tightly

inside sheets. The t-shirt blanket your grandmother made

you is choked in exhausted, worn hands. When you roll

to face the window blinds you pretended to care

about, I notice that your body curves exactly like the guitar

I longed to cradle late every night. The one you’d hate to hear after

you’ve forgotten the sharp sound of learning,

and I’ve cleaned your scrapes from the dough and coarse paperwork.

You sleep, keeping time with slow breathes

and conducting dream-perfect melodies.

While you doze off my heart shakes. I am anxious

dancer’s legs in our too-big-for-this-room-bed.

I would search beneath the patchwork quilt we couldn’t afford

to shake your shoulder. Have you laugh

away botched tests and my barely editable tofu

with caricatures of my devout disapproving grandmother.

But, I’d rather face looming bills and “Will we last?”

than pull you from so flawless a performance, so rare

a relief. I will feign calm respite and face it

all alone. You rest while adult uncertainties

crush my nervous young bones, and our version

of parenting swishes its tail lazily as it pulls

itself up onto your rising chest.