Anna Crandall
“In the past 7 days have you had difficulty sleeping
even when you had the opportunity to sleep?”
Some nights the only sound
the breath between wails.
Moon a curved fingernail the nurse
said to chew off after birth—
one more thing I couldn’t decipher
in the inky unholy sameness of each
evening; the only passage from waxing
to gibbous and back in the fugue
state of the black was animal things:
milk coming with tears, leaking beginning
each fraught dream.
Some babies sleep with mouths open:
gasping fish pigs rooting the soil
of flesh any number of creatures
to replace the human grasp of thumb
and pointer. Each shell-like fingerprint
holds on, primate fond. Call it mammalian,
call it alien, again and again to feed
to soothe to grieve the gaping wound
you tore from me. We both want to go back
to how it used to be: marsupial, hushed,
push pull of the plenilune belly tiding.
I am homesick for myself and you
are homesick for me.
Return to Motherhood’s Duality Folio
Anna Crandall (she/her) is a writer living in Portland, Oregon. She has previously taught in Oregon’s Department of Corrections and is currently a high school Language Arts teacher. She is pursuing her Master’s in English and Creative Writing and has work recently published or upcoming in Shot Glass Journal, Does It Have Pockets, and more. You can find her on Instagram @teacupsandghosts