Five

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