Winter
In winter, I began to learn a new way of loving. I watched the bulbs’ necks broken by alternating heat and ice and did not avert my gaze. No longer able to take the light as given, I cut holes in the ceiling, warmed a box of chicks with a lamp red as motherfear, something close enough to protection. For my family, the loaves I baked were sorrow- laden, dough like mud that clung to my skin. Don’t touch it, I told the babies, their faces half-hidden by masks of cotton. We must, at least, keep your hands clean.