out of pocket

You are not from my body,
but I gave you my body
because it was all I had 
those lean first months
(and by lean I mean
I gorged myself late at night
when the Bad News Factory
had shut down for the day,
I hoped; I breathed in
quesadillas and breathed out
fear).

My mind was stuck
in a sandy ditch, somewhere
between 2011 and our last
failed adoption that spring:
We skipped stones in a manmade lake
and left Reno without a baby.
When you arrived, somehow
too early and too late, 
I was a sad spinning tire,
a clock missing half my cogs,
but still right twice a day.

You: a 32-weeker, a four-pounder,
quick to shake off your rocky entry
into this world: You arrived breech
but righted yourself, right as my world
turned upside down, again.
I fussed and projected,
wondered if I wanted any of this.
But your name means baby kangaroo
and I pocketed you, like something coveted
and stolen. My hold was not sweet,
but it was steadfast.

When you slept on my chest,
our hearts were inches apart.
You were a sandbag, a warm cat,
not a container for all my worries
but something dense and full and now.
And just as these moments doubled
and doubled again,
like a pregnancy proving viable,
another era was upon us.
The cocoon opened,
our musty truths dispersed.

Now our days begin with a drive
to daycare: more kind strangers,
like a bookend to the NICU,
people who know better than I do.
This is the end of the beginning,
and did I ever fumble it,
sobbing I'm sorry into the folds
of your neck instead of watching
your eyes turn from rock-blue
to cola-brown, a dark sunrise.
Now I pick you up after sundown.

To say I have regrets
implies I could have done it
a different way. Or that you could have,
or the mother who wanted to hold you
forever, but placed you in my shaking arms.
To say I have regrets implies I won't have more.
This is the beginning of next part,
and no one knows how many there will be.
For now your body surfs mine
and I wrap a blanket around us
like a seatbelt.