Advice

Spirit Baby, I called you.

Eyes alight on the unseen,

you never cried, were content.

Babies need to cry to clear out their lungs.

Crying doesn’t help or hurt lungs.

I would burp you, thump THUMP, thump THUMP,

to the heartbeat rhythm

I knew you must have missed. Circling in sunlight's embrace

around, around the one-bedroom walk-up—

I saw your first smile.

Give him some water—he’s thirsty.

Babies don’t need anything but breast milk until six months.

Your tiny head nesting my neck, ageless sighs,

your smell of hope—I never knew before you

how a heart can break from joy.

Put him on his stomach to sleep. Back is bad.

Back is best.

A second-hand wooden cradle

next to my mattress on the floor,

you never had to wait for me.

I drew black and white Keith Haring sketches over newspaper,

hung it for you to see. But you have always known beauty.

Don’t hold him so much—put him down.

Never let him out of your sight.

You knew all

I needed to know.

We all cry,

all thirst,

all roll around in sleep, and

no one

can be held too much.

•••
Lisa St. John is a retired English Teacher and published poet. Her chapbook, Ponderings, is available on her website at lisachristinastjohn.com. She lives in the beautiful Hudson Valley of upstate New York where she calls the Catskill Mountains home. Lisa has published her poetry in journals such as, The Poet’s Billow, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, Albany Poets, Light, Entropy Magazine, The Poetry Distillery, Poets Reading the News, and Chronogram Magazine. Her poems have won awards such as The Bermuda Triangle Contest. The excerpt, “I Still Exist,” from her working memoir, was published by Grief Digest Magazine.

Advice

Lisa St John