Before the first nude photos you ever allowed
Before obsessing about olives, pineapple, and shrimp
Before the cliché of kitchen table big belly sex
Before to-do lists, completed
Before sledgehammers of contractions
Before running every red light
Before fissures in the doctors’ calm
Before cradling seven pounds six ounces
Before touching Isaiah’s cleft chin
Before engorged breasts
Before tasting your own milk
Before shutting the door without glancing at the dapper penguins, waiting
Before pills dry you out
Before online ads for onesies, diapers, and formula haunt you
Before presents keep arriving from friends who haven’t heard
Before misplacing your keys
Before leaving your credit cards who knows where
Before losing your phone, your sunglasses, your bag
Before figuring out if it’s not glued to you, you can’t keep track of anything
Before all you notice is babies, babies, babies
Before your partner becomes a fitness fanatic
Before your boss begins documenting
Before you type, print, and burn each offered platitude
Before posting the ashes and a rant, live, online
Before taking up gardening
Before discovering you’re allergic to poison ivy
Before learning you’re allergic to the topical treatment of poison ivy
Before finding out eating cashews spreads poison ivy
Before your skin is covered with weeping, scarlet sores
Before the relief of looking exactly how you feel
Before realizing you’ll always know how old he would have been
Before yelling at God whom you’ve ignored for years
Before sobbing when your skin betrays you by healing
Before dreaming Isaiah is reborn, floating, in a lava spill of tears
Before your partner is ready to try again
Before you’re not
Before if only
Before