At 2, Jonah's voice like a train conductor's announcement, that
clear and awake. He says Mama and Aba, and then cries a
chant for some ages before I go in to him and shush
and touch his hot head. He is sick, he is not at home, he is frightened.
I pick him up and rock him on my shoulder, his rosy, heavy form.
I am sick, I am impatient. An anxious ghost haunting our rooms.
4 AM. His voice from the crib, and his father goes to him,
Gabriel sings Jonah the baby owlette song, comes back to bed.
It hasn't worked. This time he stays with him a while, comes
trailing the thin, strong thread of crying. He never does this
anymore, and when I put my hand on his back he grabs it
and holds it to his chest and clings.
We silently agree to bring him in, and then we all try together.
They both drop into the steady breath, and I lay stiffly in my terrible mind.
Enraged to be awake, numbering and numbering the hours
of lost sleep, hours taken from the poem, my senses dulled for the day.
A book of bitterness. I cannot sleep from reading it. I lie in twisting anger
like a poker reddening in fire. A million mothers do this, a million times
each night, Elizabeth. The child cries and you comfort the child.
Only remain. The clock radio shimmers its furious red numbers.
The birds are still. I want to cry. I want my mother to come to me
in this fearsome dark and stroke my hair, and see me and whisper
the someone's sleeping Lord.
Mother, all my life I will long for you.
Elizabeth Sullivan is a mama, poet, and environmental and bike activist. Founder of City CarShare and a new venture, Streetline, Elizabeth lives and works in the Mission District of San Francisco with her partner, Gabriel and her son, Jonah.
