Three and a half

My hand cannot feel my heart but my heart, through my hand, feels.
Upon morning, one of the first things I touch will be my son's face. It is very important for me to wake him gently. So different from the violent shifts in consciousness that usually send me into a quiet dawn - a bit disoriented, sometimes weepy, roaring inside - my blood gone thready and purple.

I will spread thin yellow light across my ebbing fears now. I will open something; something hinged, latched, screened, and let a moth go free. It will open its wings. I'll settle through its loosening departure and say good morning and spread butter on warm toast. I'll hand it to my child, having first cut away the crust. His hunger will change its rectangular shape, making it flower. He eats clockwise, neatly round and round despite the crumbs and as he chews he talks about seahorses and tells me the different names of children he knows. I do not tell him to close his mouth while he chews. He tells me he's a baby tiger and that he painted the sky blue and then he roars.

Today, he'll collect feathers. He wants to "build himself into a bird." That is how he explains it to me. I help him find them without him knowing I am helping. We find only a few, some dirty and flight-worn from several different species. After awhile, he suggests we switch to pine cones - surprisingly similar in structure and they're scattered all over. Hundreds of them. He flew all afternoon.