Last night you were awake from 11:30pm-3:30am. We rocked you and bounced you and snuggled you and swaddled you and let you suck on fingers and nipples; we sang you and cajoled you and shushed you and snapped at you. At 3:25am you smiled at me, big, and fell asleep.
You woke again at 6:30, nursed halfheartedly (tiredly) until 7:30 and then wouldn't fall asleep. I wrapped the Moby around my running shirt and gray sweatpants and put you inside. Hats on both our heads and Peder's lime green down jacket around us both and then we were outside in the parking lot. Fog over everything, dim morning light, back and forth over the black asphalt. I stumbled in my clogs but caught myself; Luxy watched from inside, front paws on the windowsill. After half an hour I took you back inside and we fell asleep together on the couch, still dressed in the Moby and the coat and our hats.
Later in the morning, on the changing table, you smiled big again and again. Is that why you couldn't sleep last night? Were you learning how to smile?
Later in the morning I read to you from "A Visit to William Blake's Inn." Then at Blue Monday, I wrote you this (very rough!) poem:
Rapunzel licked her net of hair
and found a lobster hiding there.
The lobster cooled his claw in fire
where swam a satyr and a lyre.
The lyre found a Liar's hands
and with Contentment formed a band.
Contentment played the upright bass;
the half-notes zoomed to outer space.
In outer space the notes unglued
every myth they found untrue
and all the creatures, from those myths,
took off their bedclothes, pled the Fifth.
The Fifth Amendment scoffed at them:
"Your naked butts are made of tin!"
And so they were! And so their gleams
reflected in the lobster's dreams
until the gleaming woke the Sun
who said, "My beams are number one!
You'll have to take your butts inside
and mute them down with oxen hide."
The mythic creatures shook their heads,
"Our rears will shimmer 'til we're dead."
And so they did and so they are,
we call them comets, moons, and stars.
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