At Squire Point I Don’t Want to Be a Sad Mother

I remember I have a child, vaguely He wears a raincoat, tiny pine trees on his sailor shoes

I will have to give him away, very slowly when winter comes. First one night a week, and then two.

Stars on one ceiling: fishes on another

Papa is asleep, I say. I will always want to touch you, I said when he left me.

It won’t happen all at once, he said.

First the closets of his winter coats. I braced myself. It’s a million little things: his skin, the tongues of his shoes

I should have never given birth. I feel a color he left in my stomach when I am alone, a shovel mark

At quiet hour, I hear his papa and I talking before he was born Our childless voices, our love over the water

But these woods are made of dry paper; I was right; I could not give birth without losing

Now he asks if I will be his mama for all of the time

If those are leaves falling down off my orange shirt. God,

what blankets will I choose for his second bed. Are the trees against the windows safe.

Once I lost my glove in a city. Somehow it matters then that I was in love and this had never happened.