Emma Danes
Going down
Hip-hitched, one arm hooked
on mine, our baby sleeps
unruly day smoothed out
and back where he belongs
heart to heart, milk-blissed.
I try to put him down.
Blurred, involuntary
he rears up. Misery
and pity beat like heat
between us. I lift him.
Instantly he finds his place,
the way his heavy
head exactly fits
my collarbone, as though
his ear is pressed against
a shell to hear the sea
and he is plunging sleekly
into sleep. The books say
not to do this: babies
have to learn to sleep alone.
But later in the needy
darkness it is we who cling
together on our raft-bed
all at sea and diving deep, deep.
Emma Danes has worked as a writer, editor and teacher. She has been published in Poetry News.
Page(s) 16
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