Comfort
I wake every morning to
my youngest daughter’s breath,
hot on my face, the way I woke once
to hot air displaced by the wings of a bat.
I am not scared of my daughter.
Her body finds a way
to cuddle mine, no matter what
I’m doing, her feet pressing on
top of mine in downward dog,
her body straddling my side
as I clamshell my way to strength.
My oldest daughter
no longer needs the comfort
of my body, instead
she wants to talk, to hear
about the bat, and how I rolled
out of the bunkbed and onto
the floor like a bargain basement
James Bond, before I chased it out
of the house with a broom.
The Island
In my memory, the marsh was always filled with
fireflies, even if it was only one week a summer
when we could see that green glow
and the sudden flash of cattail near it.
I never wanted to catch one in my hands.
Just because something is beautiful
doesn’t mean it should be yours,
it doesn’t mean it should be anyone’s.
On his birthday this year my husband found a blue egg
near the marsh and picked it up.
“It’s fake I think,” he said as it exploded
in his hand, yellow, and never to be a robin,
even before he picked it up, far from a nest.
Still I felt that loss. We both did.
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Caitlin Thomson’s work has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary journals including: The Penn Review, The Moth, Barrow Street, Wraparound South, and Radar Poetry. You can learn more about her writing at www.caitlinthomson.com.
New Critique 