I held my baby daughter in her yellow rainsuit every day
on the four-month trip out West: Big Sur, Olympia, Whistler,
Glacier, smile all tooth and grimace in our photographs by the sea,
the yellow nylon like a fever I clutched so I wouldn’t throw her down
to dirt and dart away. Madness’ keen approach like a wolf, lit by stars,
steering my hands to shred at my skin, a crow’s beak tearing apart
a nest in its search for hunger’s end. My daughter’s need a dog’s
steady howl, all night her shrieks of want no voice could answer,
no touch could calm. My breasts shrugged their empty flesh
and I sang a lullaby to still the tremble at the corners—
all the pretty little horses and their bright stampede across my hands,
the walls of the metal camper thin as a knife’s knowing blade.
Every cliff’s lip I considered from a stone’s view—such a long way
down, such a quick step to go from rest to motion, fall to free.
