Home from the hospital,
I can't name what's changed,
only know it's there.
I scan the faces:
two boys, one girl.
My life summed up
in a word: Mama.
Don't they need me
more than I need her?

Under my husband's
watchful eye,
I pack notes,
sketches, photos.
The woman I love
shoved in a box,
taped shut, packed away.

Months later,
while the baby sleeps
and black beans soak
in a pan by the stove,
I sit at glass table,
scribble first poems.
Beside me, the twin zebras
I bought in a Thrift
balance candles on their backs,
their painted skins as vivid
as a woman's tattooed hand
opening the faint edges of dark.