Baby Giant

after Leonora Carrington
 
 

For your birth, a river-rush basket lined in fleece, willow walls, and knots of pillows stitched in birds.
White curtains in that light folded the bright into the heart of their threads. Our first night, you:
barely big as a dandelion clock. But in the morning, your basket’s a shell, and a rush of wings, mit Lieb,
outside the window leaves me quiet as your feet planted on the earth. As the treetops at your cotton
hem. As the clouds cradling your cheeks. Quiet as your eyes seeking solace in resignation. Don’t
worry, mine say, I will align the stars for you and wash your feet in rivers.

 
 
 

With undergraduate and graduate degrees in English literature and creative writing, poetry, from UCLA and UF, Gainesville, Michele Pizarro Harman has published poems in such literary journals and online venues as Quarterly West, The Antioch Review, Mississippi Mud, Midwest Quarterly, Puerto del Sol, Sycamore Review, Berry Blue Haiku, Shepherd’s Check, a handful of stones, and Miriam’s Well. She currently lives with her husband and two of their four children in the small town in Central California where she and her husband grew up; beyond the cows, crows and cranes, she teaches reading, writing, and math to K-6 special-needs students in a public elementary school. She also may be found at: www.michelepizarroharman.com.