....

It's 10:17pm and I'm the only one awake in the house.
Judge is passed out atop our bedclothes
and Lil is snoozing soundly after a day of playing with the cousins.
I have the television on in the background for company though I'm not watching it.

I cannot believe how quickly she is growing up.
I cannot believe how hard my husband works for so little.
I cannot believe how difficult it is to keep a house clean.

I find joy in chasing her around the house; she crawls so efficiently.
When she eats plums I made for her, or manages to say Dada as
she wakes in the morning, looking for him,
or simply gives me a smile, laden with those six astonishing
and knife-like teeth, it breaks my heart.
I think that is what love is -
having your heart broken everyday, over and over.

And he is Kinch, my knifeblade,
always soaring too close to the sun,
stuffed with so much poetry and backwards charm.

I revel in my life with them
because I am the luckiest.
I am nourished in their nighttime sighs.