from I Write to You from the Moon
* * *
Thursday—late.
R,
It’s a boy. I can’t believe I didn’t mention that before. The ultrasound looked like the snow after I’ve been drinking: fuzzy and frightening. Or else it’s a loopy chess game: the rook is a hand; the knight is a nose. And we all know about the bishop. When I was born, I wanted to be king, so my parents named me Arthur. Cold tonight. I think I want to name him Eclipse. Or Wind.
Zugzwang?
B
* * *
Wednesday—cold.
R,
The moon is a yo-yo, sure. And stars are teenage fathers, dim and light-years away. Why not. But a diaper is a diaper, a breast is a breast, and snow is the nightmare of rain. Who’ll stop the dragons of dreams when he cries? My fingers are nothing like lances.
Without chivalry,
B
* * *
Sunday—three inches of snow overnight.
R,
Out in the pretty little sky, just behind the trees, music: a march, a hushaby, the dirge of the dark flight of an owl. My voice is a graveyard of gravel; hers is a music-box ballerina. And I suppose over the crib, we will sing: like moaning moons, like pitchforks’ rusty tines, like maladjusted xylophone mallets. Ay, ay, ay, ay, canta y no llores. Pretty little sky.
In time,
B
* * *
Sunday—lunch.
R,
My father owns a Bible and a golden retriever, both ragged and gilt. His name is engraved on the cover; hers on her tags. So many ways to claim what we own; so many ways to die. As if God was a weatherman and a green screen. As if my mother thinks of swing sets while she cooks chicken noodle soup. Tears, spit, blood, urine, and vomit. As if yes was the song of the cradle, middle of a blue afternoon, all that rocking.
Affirmatively,
B
* * *
Wednesday—snow melting.
R,
Say fatherhood is a falcon. Say motherhood is a balcony. What, then, is a child? A bouquet of brains, a cauldron of crumbs? Sometimes our metaphors only carry us so far, like trains. This evening, the sun evaporated as easily as a tear. And I’d like to think his skin will be a suitcase, packed with breast milk and baby powder, which will clothe him far beyond the falconer’s calls.
Traveling,
B
* * *
Friday—even warmer.
R,
What worries me is how little it worries me. Like a snowman standing stick-still on a fifty-degree day. Like the chickadee assuming the seeds of spring are somehow scattered by blizzards. I’d like to approach this the way you might a trigonometry problem: without much regard for the angles. I will watch her belly grow round as a cupped palm. Months will pass like whispers. Then one day I’ll get the phone call. I’ll quit everything and drive to the hospital, the radio playing softly as a feather. I’ll look around. I’ll be amazed: the chickadees, ultimately, were right.
Sinusoidally,
B
* * *
Thursday—below zero predicted.
R,
Sure, we walked about the decision for a while: our lives like a long, fallow field versus one where someone had drawn crayon on the walls. But soon even those discussions seemed as distant as the damselflies are now—wherever they went with their green, however they preen their wings. You’ve seen the way they mate: promiscuous as the snow that sleeps with each atom of ice. Their bodies are neon exclamation points of sex. And now I’m listening to the heart on a karaoke machine in the clinic. And now I’m wondering when you and I will canoe upriver to watch their wings pulse darkly. And now I’m in a drugstore, buying diapers and boxes of crayons.
In flight,
B
* * *
Thursday—cold but clear.
R,
Last night, the stars seemed cuddled in conspiracy, making up stories about eons of light. But now the morning has pulled its gray covers over them, saying, Hush now, children, you’ve had such a busy night. Is there anything more comforting than being tucked in? My child will wear vestments of silver. Each night I’ll feed him a teaspoon of stars, jars of them jewelling the cabinet. And some mornings I’ll sprinkle a few into my coffee to remind me again and again how to shine.
Con brio,
B
* * *
Saturday—dinner.
R,
Maybe I’m more scared than I care to admit. First broken bone, first broken heart. First kiss, first marriage, first grade. So many things we can only do once. Before sunrise, the clouds are iridescent as a grackle. All afternoon, the sky is opalescent as a clamshell. And my fears are crude oil, flowing from the deep well of this pen. Let the first things he sees be shiny and beautiful: her sweat-slickened face, my fingernails reflecting fluorescent light.
First things first,
B
* * *
Tuesday—can’t sleep.
R,
In my blood runs a seam of coal, waiting to become fire or diamonds. In her breath lives a cat drunk on its purr. And together we have made a child. What shall comprise him? Teeth of tornadoes, hair scared of lightning, a stomach that sucks in the stars? This morning, the owls sleep at their altars of mouse bones. A light snow constellates the air. And now we, she and I, we are authors of an unstoppable force that will demolish the walls of our lives. Yet we still keep the back hall swept, still put the dishes away when they dry.
Keeping house,
B
* * *
Friday—windy but warmer.
R,
The clouds soft and changeable as a baby’s face. A gray grimace. A wrinkle. Occasionally, nothing but beams. Because for every action, there used to be inaction. Because you can’t hope to affect the cause. There is a gourd in her belly tethered to its bloody vine. And I am standing in this bright, snowy garden, leaning on my hoe, afraid and amazed.
Doing some weeding,
B
* * *
Thursday—late.
R,
The was something wrong with the test results. The telephone receiver churned in my hand like worms eating the heart of a bird. So we panicked. So we sped. Tests and more tests. Now everything, they assure us, is fine. Is this how a zealot feels, the day after his predicted apocalypse? Today I might walk down to the dam. Think of the ice as expanding skin cells, the bare trees as burgeoning nerves. So many things we can’t control. Yet the dam keeps the guts of the lake from spilling all over the place through only patience and time.
With restraint,
B
* * *
Sunday—sunset.
R,
Long ago, you and I named these islands, two Adams swimming in the garden of this lake. Let this one be Maiden. Let this one be Small. Let this be The Cathedral of Cattails. Each word carries such weight, you’d think the letters would collapse into a rubble of runes. As for the name of our child, she and I haven’t reached an agreement. She wants to build him a table and chair, a place where he can have dinner. I want something ridiculous: a rainbow with a gyrfalcon perched atop it or an apple eating a mouth eating a whale. We argue, give up, watch TV. She paints her nails. I comb my hair. What funny parents we’ll be.
Regally,
B
—BJ Best, West Bend, WI
