Midnight Feedings

By Alexa Dodd

We are limbs, braided and heavy, under sheets reluctant to release us. We are dreams interrupted, sleep sliced away like an appendage, the knife a familiar siren, filling the space between walls. We are silhouettes, faceless shapes against muted window glow. We are whispers over the rattle, words scarcely audible, words we’ll forget by morning. We are hushing and hands, fumbling and failing to harness the cries back in. You are a cradle, arms with a squirming offering. I am safety and sustenance, liquid warmth flowing, puddling at my breast. I am the return of silence, but for the urgent tug, the breathless swallow. We are closed eyelids but pacing brains. We are bodies curving together, parenthesis bowing over a word, a definition, a meaning (a heartbeat). A question mark leaning toward a bass clef, asking how long this exhausting song will last. We are shelter. We are three instead of two, the third with the answer: not long enough.