Leaning back into the sofa, the leather cushions gave themselves to her head and neck, like two hands receiving, gently laying her down. She drew a full breath, exhaled part of the day, and her limbs relaxed. When I close my eyes, this parade, she thinks. Parade or surrealist painting.

That beautiful girl in my arms, five hours old. Light as impossibility; heavy as my hands rose to meet her. Small as my hands’ cradle; large as my heart’s opening. She crawled inside me and slept there for days and days.

There, at the foot of the mountain, one me; and at the summit, sweaty and breathless, another. One smile desiring, another satisfied. Turning, the whole world turned for me.

Flash of lights shrieking brakes burning tires the car like a predator like a lion rushed to devour me. As though it wanted me only me. Me alone. It’s true: everything goes black because your body won’t watch its own death. Hopefully, light returns. Other things return with it.

His touch (now there’s memory worth keeping: like gathering summer fruit: the warmth ripens it from green to sweet to fine bittersweet). Not always sweet, but that day, that day surely… and those nights, when he was strong enough to be soft, and I was, too.

The cushions took her in like a baby, like a weary climber, like the injured, like the beloved. Her next breath was a sigh. And then she slept.

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