I’m afraid you will die, I say.
My son sleeps. The books
call this catastrophizing, say
to splash my face, dip
my hands in ice water. To not
imagine his body cold, spray
of white lilies above
a tiny coffin
(breathe).
It is not enough.
The storm continues its dark pelt
against the windows, the roof. He stirs,
(this is normal this is a baby sleeping)
his lips pursed in a language I cannot
enter. My hand rises and falls
on his chest. I wind the mobile, kiss
his unclouded face. This is my life,
I think. Waiting for something
to happen: a dropped pacifier,
a blanket kicked off. A fever.
A forgotten breath.
Amanda Auchter is the author of The Wishing Tomb, winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Poetry and the Perugia Press Book Award, and The Glass Crib, winner of the Zone 3 Press First Book Award for Poetry. Her writing appears in publications such as Alaska Quarterly Review, HuffPost, CNN, Black Warrior Review, Shenandoah, Tupelo Quarterly, The Massachusetts Review, and the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day project, among others. She holds holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Bennington College and is a contributing reviewer for Rhino. She lives in Houston, TX.