Day 4: On Waking

I come slowly from sleep this morning –

Two steps forward, one step back –

The hungry murmurs of my son tugging me up,

The lull of my dreams drawing me down.

It’s the birds that break the tie,

Their insistently cheerful twittering scattering

The clouds of my mind like miniature feather dusters

Tickling my thoughts alive and suddenly, irreversibly:

I’m awake.

It’s not even dawn, my tired body protests

But weakly – just two years of this and already

I know I cannot win.

And so I rise,

Place one foot, then the other

Through soft, cool pajama legs,

Flap quietly down the hall in my slippers,

Squint at the thermostat,

Put the kettle on.

I don my best insistently cheerful smile

(Which I’ve borrowed from the birds, at least for now).

I open the door to my son’s room, still in blackness,

And draw the curtains on another day of motherhood.