Every 28 Days: A Rememory
Day 6: Harder now
There is a baby coming out of me
I’m in conversation about the weather and summer is soon
I can feel my baby coming out of me
I thought I needed to get out of the house
No one tells you it takes days
That you go back to work and bleed out tissue
Your students ask questions
You take notes at staffing
Small talk by the copy machine
And all the while small pieces of a dream
Small pieces of him and me
I talk to my mom on the way home
Text my sister
Order an Easter ham
Listen loud to a song on the drive home
Hard not to be
Singing
The windows down
It’s winding down
Smile at the old man bagging my groceries
Coconut water
Yogurt
Day 267
Made my mouth just big enough
to fit my own fist
cracked corners
of my lips stretching
around both fists
Our kisses are just tears and teeth
Don’t make sound
don’t say a word
I haven’t put things in the proper place for months now
Every room feels wrong
Even when I’m feeling with my fingers
Hands wringing
tongue gliding over wood
Touching my way through each room
Am I looking for a word or a face
We’re so far out now past home
Try one more time to touch
but it’s so goddamn hot in here
that thing we lost
It was a tectonic plate shifting
a small whirl of water
then the tsunami
Day 188
It’s probably better this way.
Dozen eggs
Chicken breasts
I can drink beer
Diaper size menstrual pads
I have to wear to catch the remains
I kiss cheeks and asks about everyone’s day
I help my daughter with her composition
We laugh at a memory
He spoons another scoop of potatoes
on my plate
Please eat
We yell at the newscast
I wash
He rinses
We lean in
We lose
Where to fit it all
How did I fit it all
The audacity
of a full day
with a little death
Squeezed in
between
Meetings
Only a broken bridge between who we are
And all the screaming
Jasmine Jones is a Mama, a teacher, a daughter, and a friend. She lives with her family close to, but not close enough to, a beach in Tampa, FL.