Other Internal Bruises

Three
My daughter cries when she falls,
gravel stuck in the fissures 
and mountain ranges of her knee.
 
She brushes off the rock, grimaces, and toddles
two steps toward the slide.
I think will this pain be enough?
I think this is the only way.
 
Seven
When I send her marching into school post-shooting
I remember the day she was sent to me, 
blood and water spurting forth,
the jellyfish of placenta roiling behind, 
as if she could not wait to embrace it all, untethered.
 
In carpool, I steel myself for 
end-of-the-day paper cuts and
other more internal bruises.
 
Ten
My husband and I watch Planet Earth with our children
and even we are amazed by the carnage, 
like a meteor shower, so extravagant and red and bright.
The animal deaths stack up like her learned tally marks in school.
 
One nestling tumbles toward the sea,
halting step by halting step toward sure demise.
I want to fast forward, but my daughter is enthralled.
I settle the pad of my thumb into her skin—
it leaves a white mark.
 
My daughter flinches when the penguin
loses grip on a slab of ice for the final time.
I remember how I lavished each graveled knee with ointment—
how I pressed harder when my daughter cried.