Day Care


The first day

Rose is fourteen months. That's over a year. Some kids start at six weeks. She lies on her mat crying. We can hear it through the door. We look in at her body under the frog blanket, the exact one we use in her crib. The woman says we will disturb the kids. When Rose falls into my arms, her crying stops.

I carry her half a mile home, past the bread company outlet, past dogs, their leashes draped around lampposts, past the flower shop, the barber, the antiques store, the corner diner. The whole way she doesn't cry.


At a month

Rose eats. For two weeks she wouldn't. Spare clothes, all labeled, hard-soled shoes as required. Fell down the cement steps twice, stays sitting at circle time.


Circle time

Some days I stay for circle time. I am trying to learn everything--story, song, story. Elongate the vowels. Do you know what color this is? I sing. I clap for the felt board. I sit crisscross applesauce. I wait for my name to be called.


The day I sit on the floor

Back against the wall, lift my shirt, lift my bra, nurse my baby, my baby girl.



In the fall leaves

We have closed the door to unit one, gone up the basement steps, gone past the fenced-in woodchips. Three blocks away Rose stops. She has something to say. Her body quiver--"bell, loud, bell, no coat, outside."

"Oh! Was there a fire drill? Was there a big bell, and you went outside without your coat on? Was it loud? Was it exciting?" I have understood her exactly. We both jump up and down. We both grin. She grabs my hands and we swing.


The day it hails

The children cannot see the ghosts drumming at the window. I want to show Rose, but I am afraid it won't be fair. I want to be fair to all children, to hold them in my arms, to be the mother that has come early, the magic one. Rose lets the teacher lift her. Erika, she says, Erika, Erika, Erika all the slick and dark way home.


Erika

She's having a cigarette on the back steps, crying. Her ex won't pay the child support. He can't. He won't. Just one hundred a month. I think about slipping it into the teacher pouch next to the grown-up's bathroom, the one I sneak into when I'm desperate. I think about putting together a basket of fruit or baking banana bread. I haven't baked since Rose was born. She thought they might be getting back together. She has to go to the food bank. She has to go back to class.




published in New Letters vol . 77, No. 2

And two of my poetry idols--Albert Goldbarth and Kim Addonizio--are in the same issue. Wow!