NEW FEATHERS ANTHOLOGY
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Photo by Zach Lucero
Before You
Kate Maxwell
 
 
Loved before he knew the sky
tang of citrus, smell of summer
he gasped into the sharp air
of that late December morning
shocked by gravity–
            its heavy drag of cold 
            and how his helpless
            unswimming limbs 
flailed, now so strangely unfamiliar 
in this weird and wombless world 
of too much light and noise and touch.
 
His sobs hushed with the comfort of  
sweet nipple, warm press of skin on 
skin, and the scent and sound he’d 
always known 
            of her. 
 
She’d always known him too. 
Had scrubbed and oiled her strong-latched 
box of yearning long before he came
each wish stored, secured and wrapped 
with tattered layers of a soul
stripped and woven round his future. 
Separate from affection for the father
whatever she still kept for that man
who turned away, gave so little
until he gave the greatest gift.
 
Cocooned by freshly painted walls
blue as morning sky
            so unlike her daily shade 
            of stoic sorrow 
and clean white shelves lined 
with folded cottons, bears or balms 
to soothe imagined infant troubles 
she rocked and crooned
            adored and swooned.
 
For he had always been her life’s work.
Magnificent as she moved 
through this chosen devotion 
to channel, breathe and build 
a gifted passion for his joy.
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