Between Bruises & Blooms

Before the world knew
how little time
it would give us,

you belonged to me
in a way no clock
could measure.

Beneath my ribs,
there was a daughter.

A whole little universe
folded into the darkness
of my body.

I had already begun
the quiet work of loving you.

The kind that happens
before introductions,
before birthdays,
before anyone else
can understand
that a mother has already
made a home
for someone she has never met.

I did not know
how quickly everything
could be taken.

I did not know
that I would spend
the rest of my life
trying to explain
the difference
between a short life
and a small one.

Yours was never small.

You rearranged
the stars inside me.

And even now,
after eleven years
of learning to live
with an empty pair of arms,

some part of me
still remembers
what it felt like
to be your first home.