When I looked at the forecast on the computer this morning, I saw gray cloud piled on gray cloud piled on gray cloud. Attached to the bellies of a few of the clouds: drops of rain. Dotting the belly of Thursday's cloud: snowflakes. At 5am, the urine on the back of your white swaddle formed a little cloud.
When you woke at 1:30am, Daddy's eyes were open. He hadn't yet fallen asleep. He touched your black hair (fine and soft from your bath) while you nursed. He'd been reading Newsweek downstairs until 11pm. Now he was awake and (after a week of illness and 7 weeks of celibacy), feeling amorous. Meanwhile, I was massaging my breast to help the milk flow faster and watching the slow hand of the clock make it's way toward the 9 (if you've stopped sucking after 15 minutes, I remove you from my nipple).
In each day are certain slivers of time. The slivers are silver. When you sleep there is a sliver. When Ricki takes you walking in the Baby Bjorn there is a sliver. When Daddy feeds you your bottle there is a sliver. And then there are the things I long to do: read a novel, write a blog post, write a poem, prepare for my spring courses, cook a meal, undress and lay my skin against your father's skin, eat barbecue chicken pizza with friends, check my e-mail, fold the laundry, make a birthday CD for John, buy a dress that is soft and gray and loves the lines of my body. But there are never enough slivers and when I finally have time, I am sometimes so obsessed with the minutes that I cannot concentrate. I worry I am not using every second wisely.
And still, amongst these silver streaks of time, I think of you, cannot stop thinking of you. Your smiles are a drug now. You smell of Burt's Bees Baby Lotion, when I inhale the air near your head, I can taste the sweetness on my tongue. But it is so gray, Thisbe. And the gray shows no sign of ending.
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