“Sleep when the baby sleeps,”

they say.

As if sleeping
is a switch
easily turned on.

Especially when
all of your
mind’s power
is being used
for the electricity
of fatherhood.

Especially when
you know that
a dad could be a God,
but you are
a feminist.

Especially when
your daughter’s breathing
could brush the quiet
off of a cloud,

but you
keep checking
for storms
through
weather-worn
insomnia.

What if
a baby
is a poem?

Ask me to sleep
through that –

where every breath
is a mirror fog
writing itself
through unstable,
forgetful darkness
and each mind twitch
is a pen stroke.

No matter
what happens,
the words
will be written,

a mouth
will be fed,

a woman
will be born,

a person
will be an echo

and your eyelids
will be heavy
with daylight.