Close Menu
  • Home
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Links
  • MER Journal
    • Latest Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Subscribe to MER!
  • MER ONLINE
    • MER Quarterly
    • MER Literary Folios
    • Poetry
    • Fiction
    • Creative Prose
    • Essay
    • Craft
    • Interviews
    • Book Reviews
      • Bookshelf
    • Authors’ Notes
    • Art Gallery
      • Special – Hybrids
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Poem of the Month
    • Events
      • MER 18 Virtual Reading – Voices From HOME
    • Currents
      • Announcements
      • Highlights
  • Shop
    • All Issues
    • One Year Subscription
    • Two Year Subscription
  • Submit
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
MER – Mom Egg Review
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube Tumblr Threads
  • Home
    • About
    • Masthead
    • Links
  • MER Journal
    • Latest Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Subscribe to MER!
  • MER ONLINE
    • MER Quarterly
    • MER Literary Folios
    • Poetry
    • Fiction
    • Creative Prose
    • Essay
    • Craft
    • Interviews
    • Book Reviews
      • Bookshelf
    • Authors’ Notes
    • Art Gallery
      • Special – Hybrids
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Poem of the Month
    • Events
      • MER 18 Virtual Reading – Voices From HOME
    • Currents
      • Announcements
      • Highlights
  • Shop
    • All Issues
    • One Year Subscription
    • Two Year Subscription
  • Submit
NEWSLETTER
MER – Mom Egg Review
You are at:Home » Krista Lee Hanson, “Snuggling My Son to Sleep Haibun” – Creative Nonfiction

Krista Lee Hanson, “Snuggling My Son to Sleep Haibun” – Creative Nonfiction

0
By Mom Egg Review on September 10, 2024 Poetry

Krista Lee Hanson

Snuggling My Son to Sleep Haibun

 

Dearest child, contours of your long face softened in the night’s shadows, thin wisps of first facial hair disappearing in the dark. No room for me on the other side of the bed where tubes snake to machines that keep you breathing. We lie on our sides, face to face. I admire your eyelids, nose, cheeks and lips, the whole of you like I did when you were an infant in my arms. When the machines were so much bigger than your delicate baby body entangled in monitor wires.

Ventilator whooshes and purrs. Old house creaks under the cat’s silent steps. Your thumb reaches for your mouth, even as you grow past my height. I brush your loose hair from your face like I have one thousand times before. You, who feign teenage disdain at my jokes but still do not protest when I plant kisses on your forehead as you roll out the door to school; you, who have a full life I could never have imagined when they handed us the name of your rare disease, a tiny Latin poem in my mouth; you, who still need me to brush the long bangs aside, brush your teeth, lift your arms, remove the shoes, roll you over, roll you back, tilt your head, adjust the pillows, rearrange and stretch and reposition your body again and again and again.

We often fall asleep together: you, the wakeful and me, the heavy sleeper. When you call in the night, I crawl into your bed, hoping my sleep will be infectious. But on this night I open my eyes, soak in the soft details of you. Our noses just an inch apart, I am overwhelmed by your precious beauty, by the sweetness of your trust, the intimacy of lying here so close to each other. This dependency. This care. Your trust as I steward your body toward breath. Our joy in this deep entanglement.

We know each other, our bodies and hearts and each inhalation, from so very close. I arrange my body so we mirror each other, noses, elbows, knees brushing under the quilt. I reach my arm up over your bony shoulder, run my hand along your back, and feel you fall asleep in the cradle of my breath.

 

I would trade a thousand

things for this moment, your trust

so big it hurts

 

Krista Lee Hanson lives in Seattle, home of the Coast Salish people, with her partner and two children. Krista’s writing about care, parenting and disability has appeared in The Rumpus, The Normal School, Rad Families, A Celebration and other publications. When not writing or parenting, Krista runs by the lake, leads mindfulness classes, supports organizing for our collective liberation, and waits for the sourdough to rise.

 

Back to “Medical Motherhood”

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
Previous ArticleSuzanne Edison, “Mother’s Day at Lake Washington” – Poetry
Next Article Nancy Huggett, “Intercession: ER Waiting Room” – Poetry

Comments are closed.

Recent VOX Posts
May 1, 2025

MER Poem of the Month – May 2025

April 14, 2025

Something New – Haiku! by Sarah Mirabile-Blacker

April 1, 2025

MER Poem of the Month – April 2025

March 13, 2025

MOTHERING ALONE

March 13, 2025

Julia C. Alter – The Nursing Chair

March 13, 2025

Ana María Carbonell – Ledger & Vermouth

March 13, 2025

Savannah Cooper-Ramsey – By Four Months

March 13, 2025

Jill Crammond – When I Sell My Wedding Ring at the Pawn Shop

March 13, 2025

Kelsey Jordan – I Find a Blond Hair in His Laundry

March 13, 2025

Laurin Becker Macios – Mama, Look

March 13, 2025

Kali Pezzi – I Treat My Postpartum Depression With Friends on Facetime

March 13, 2025

Sara Quinn Rivara – Single Motherhood Was My Superpower

March 13, 2025

Adrie Rose – Climate Strike

March 13, 2025

Wendy Mannis Scher – Memo to the Absent

February 28, 2025

Poem of the Month – March 2025

January 30, 2025

Poem of the Month – February 2025

January 2, 2025

Poem of the Month – January 2025

December 12, 2024

Jennifer Case – Nonfiction

December 12, 2024

Derek Davidson – Nonfiction

December 12, 2024

Amy Gallo Ryan – Nonfiction

December 12, 2024

Melissa Mowry – Nonfiction

December 12, 2024

Sharon Dolin – Poetry

December 12, 2024

Jennifer Garfield – Poetry

December 12, 2024

Amy Lee Heinlen

December 12, 2024

Vicki Iorio – Poetry

Archives
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube Tumblr Threads
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Submit
  • Contact
MER - Mom Egg Review
PO Box 9037, Bardonia, NY 10954
Contact [email protected]

Copyright © 2025 MER and Mom Egg Review

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.