I can hear the announcer calling the football came
The whistle
There are school buses parked up the street
like three yellow whales
So much life happening out there, so many feelings,
I can hear them all on the breeze outside the girls’ window
Sitting on the floor in their room taking inventory of their clothes
What fits, what’s thrashed, what we need to buy before school starts on Wednesday
And as I sit here
Doing chores, organizing clothes
Life quietly bleeds away from me
In clumps and pints, or maybe teaspoons but it feels like liters
It feels like 35 weeks just went through the paper shredder
Five miscarriages is a lot, Sue told me this morning
Driving past the ocean made me feel nice and small
Small enough to fit three-to-a-seat on the school bus
Does this matter that much? Life is long, I’ll be okay right?
But then Nate asks me what I need and I crumple
Just a hug, I tell him
As if that could possibly be true