Writings from Daniel P.

Until the gate breaks open— this baby with a mohawk, golden eyes, and a bow who got a third a chance of dying within the year.

Sometimes I need to steal behind a bathroom door after I press her swollen belly

and the tears burn an ache behind my hairline.

Or sometimes less expected,

like when the nurses tell me I listen good

or I talk the students through some jargon and it flows out like some sense.

But the mothers always get me— rousing in the morning when I dim up the lights

and ask how they slept through the beeping vital checks and line jams.

Their children gasp in air around hollows of pus,

or retch against the telescoping of their bowels.

It's the disoriented urgency as these mothers wake. They are here, struggling to gain some way to salve their kids.

It breaks me open and

I feel exposed.

The numbers wisp right out of my head.

But their love cuts my doubt.