like seeds of daffodils sun drenched,

desert babies.

 

i don’t know if i’ll ever be a mother.

it feels natural to imagine nothing.

 

like vacant nights.

like the inside of an egg after it’s

 

been blown empty — straw to mouth —

by a child like yours.

 

i imagine, one day, i’ll have dark hair.

wear red dresses with hyacinths,

 

cup my loneliness in my hands

like it is cold rare water.

 

my mother never wanted children.

she bore three. i know the flimsiness

 

of these convictions. how often

to want all is to have nothing.

 

young and treacherous as i am,

when i hear them cry in the night,

 

i cry too.

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