(no subject)
Anne Waters,
December 21, 1862
Dreamed I had my baby
back,
Held her in a blanket
before the fire
and rubbed her
arms and legs
until she moved again,
and then began to cry.
I was suddenly
filled up,
like something solid
had entered my body,
or an arm lost long ago
had returned
to swell the empty sleeve and
drive away the phantom pain.
We rocked and rocked
before that fire
which blazed impossibly,
devouring the cold
and pushing back the dark
around the house.
I ran to tell the news,
but when I lifted
the cover there was
only the piglet I'd
tried to save last spring,
already cold and still.
Then I was myself again.
What was here
was still around me,
what was gone
was absent as before.
Outside a cold rain
fell blankly on the roof
and in the empty fields.
Anne & Alpheus, 1842-1882, by Joe Survant