You watch over her sleep like you have done countless nights

Before you let sleep come over you.

You take her warm hand, soft like down and kiss it once

whispering a prayer

Never depend on another

like I do now.

Never love without a reason to love

Because reason will spare you pain

You begin.

You stop.

You open the window

draw the curtain tighter

let in the air

block out the light.

You remember your own mother’s words

she demanded you hear so you would be spared

something like humiliation if you spoke up.

She told you to keep the peace, let the men be.

But ideas like humiliation, submission, like peace

Are flipped like a fish that has browned too deeply on one side.

So your prayer is not your mother’s as you clasp your baby’s hand

to your mouth to her ear, her eyes closed as you near.

Be angry-whenever the moments demand

Be a gale, the sightless storm that fells the calm

stoic trees

Which stand silent in reprise

Before the rains

Be the queen of all rage

and reason

Because it will carry you away like a chariot

pulled by a thousand silver swans into the air

into the night

up into the stars

where the men cannot follow

where the air is too thin to swallow

anything but love.

And she sleeps with those words hung like fireflies in the dark of her room

and you are tired.

You turn to turn off the lights

check the window one last time

and you glimpse the stars beyond the rooftops

waiting for your swans and your chariot that may still come.