Phoebe
says, I was up in the room by the trees making my girl’s bed and I could still smell her sleep.When I snapped the sheet, starlings, ten thousand it seemed, rose from the old larch all at once, settled, rose again, flew off. And then I lay down. But only my body slept, something else was awake but trapped. The bowl on my table is filled with blood oranges which, during Advent, are un-gassed green and sweet and five for a dollar. I peel a section off my own (it sighs like a red bird’s lung) and offer it to her. She takes my hand. I’ve given over all the easy things—the envy and greed, but not what I love: my daughter, my life. How do I do that? Let go of what I love? She opens her palm and points to the crescents etched on the seams with her gibbous moon fingers. Don’t tell anybody this. It’s mine.
