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Nora Wood

Cleaving


In the spring of 1993, I was nearing the end of my second pregnancy with a daughter. As she once again dug her heels into my ribs, I was able to clutch her tiny heel through my stretched flesh for a few seconds. It was a precious near-meeting in the bright world outside my womb where I knew and held all of her.

My thoughts turned to my son, the firstborn, whose tiny heel had been pricked countless times and whose burial booties had been far too big. Could he be as nearby as she with only a translucent spiritual membrane or mime's wall separating his dimension and mine?

the rising mist —
all that divides us
all that binds us