The Bluest Glow

When you arrive, you’ll be so much better
than a Cabbage Patch Doll—so small,
I can see you now under my fingernails.

You are my skin. Do you skim the vacant city
on the left side of my kidney, or maybe
you’ve built a flat on the small of my back?

Does a wisp of you shimmy in some creek
by my oblique? Or are you curled up
on the couch of my belly, the one urging me—
now—always—to eat sweets to make room
to make you?                       You are the best

part of me and I’ve always known
I needed you before I was sure who I needed
to make you. To make you. Like a cake. Like some craft. You’ll be
constructed. Out of people! Parts of people. You’ll be. A being. And when you come,

you’ll be so weak—light’s fingers

might shift to nails and try to scratch
your eyes, might sting you with the singe
of sin. Oh yes, my dear, the dark—

it always finds that trap door in. It feeds.

But I will cover you with every blanket
this world has ever sewn. You,

my wind-blown

dandelion        wish,                   my little person to whom
I’ll throw the most sticking-kisses. My tiny—so tiny—

I could clean you on a pristine China dish
with blue or pink petunia petals puckering the sides. And when you cry,

I’ll cut an onion. When you’re wet, I’ll dry you
with a warmed towel in the worn out day.
And you’ll wear. me. out. At times, we’ll tire each other.

You’ll scribble hormonal-hate on paper and slip it under my door,

falling into a heap of yourself, you’ll pound the kitchen floor. Pretend to run away.
Pretend I wasn’t right. Some Friday nights, you’ll vow to trade me in, singing
that familiar tune: the tired tortured teenager croon. I know it well.

Well, sing on my future sass-pot. Sing on, my
my oh my. Sing on with your stringy hair

and your rainbow nails and your unfurled fists.        No matter the lyrics you spit,
no matter the curses that curl, you will always be my bouncing ball
of bright. My dancing,

delicious knish. My baby—a body from my body.
The truest love. The bluest glow. My light.