Poet: Sharon Leigh

After I know, and he is gone, days stretch
unreal as Dali’s dreams. Clocks melt
in unimportance: one moment I am stirring
eggs in morning light, next, street lamps
buzz to life in purple dusk. The only constant

the sharpness of my vigilance, these children
needing me, their eyes so bright with pain
I look away. Still, I pull their compact bodies
close, draw them in like tides, and when

the move is done and we begin this chapter,
I see a photo of a mourning dove, a mother dove —
grey as wood ash, perched upon a narrow branch,
two nestlings beneath her wings, one on each side.