The Answer
BY CARRIE FOUNTAIN
When my son cried out
in the night I woke—ready—
and scrambled to his room
without even putting on
my glasses, pulled through
the dark living room and down
the dark hall by this instinct
I’m still sometimes surprised
to possess. By the time
I got to him he’d fallen back
to sleep, of course, and so there
I was, awake, squinting down
on him, twisted up in Paw
Patrol sheets, his body emitting
that constant low heat of the still-
growing. What a miracle,
I thought then, that I’ll always
get to recall the slant look
he gave me when the nurse
first brought his new face up
to mine and I could see even
then, from the start, he was
sizing me up, finding me
somewhere in the adequate-
to-lacking range, though
he must’ve known—must’ve
come knowing—that I’d
have to do. Trying to untangle
him from the sheets, I woke
him, of course, and he looked up
at me, mystified, my face
inches from his. When he asked
what I was doing there,
I answered, I’m not here, go
back to sleep, and he did.
Once, my life was neat.
It was a handkerchief, folded,
slipped into a back pocket.
No one had to know
it was even there. Now,
it’s opened. And wasn’t it
this I prayed for in some
distant, quiet place, all
alone, all lonesome and alone?
Wasn’t it God I asked
to allow me the grace
to one day learn the names
of all the dogs on Paw Patrol,
all the ponies on My Little
Pony, all the Pokémon, good
and bad, the Care Bears,
the Transformers, the enemies
of Batman, the friends of
Batman, all the good guys
and all the bad guys forever
and ever, amen? Make it
real. Wasn’t that exactly
what I’d asked for?
Summertime
BY CARRIE FOUNTAIN
I flush the latest dead fish down
the toilet before the children
come home. We bought the fish
to be little responsibility lessons
and then little death lessons
for the children, though the fish
keep dying for no clear reason
and somehow I am the only one
who is ever home to partake
of the death lessons. The children
are at camp learning to be bored
and itchy with a few moments
of wonder and one to two friends
each. They are having childhoods
and I am having adulthood,
watching the silver body that just
this morning contained a life
flash like money one last time
before vanishing down the drain,
trying to decide whether or not
to tell them when they arrive,
their faces red from sun and chlorine.
I pray here, over the toilet, that in
the moment, I will tell them the truth
and that I will tell it well enough.
