Baby Aubade

Baby Aubade

 

Evening was less simple before our son

was between us, mouth on my breast

suckling in a dream.  I wish I could stop

sleep, watch the stars again

through cigarette smoke.  I miss that

dusky black, the before, before our breath

swirled air ripe with sour milk and urine.

We watched the sun rise over chain links

perspiring day, the sun interrupted

groping, tongues whipping mouths,

and smoke dragged the light over our thighs

and hands tangled like webs.  We don’t wait now,

for the rise, the good orange morning.

We know only sleep and the soft

exhalation hanging between us.

 

 

 

 

Allison Berry is working on her MFA at Queens University of Charlotte and is a Lecturer for the Women’s Studies department at Pittsburg State University and the English department at Missouri Southern State University.  Her poetry has appeared in such journals as Cow Creek Review and Little Balkans Review. She is also a contributor to the anthologies To The Stars, Through Difficulties and Begin Again: 150 Kansas Poems.  She lives in Joplin, Missouri, with her two children