It is January

 

It is January 

By Olivia Gwyn

Of course I worry

there is not enough time 

To take you in,

all of you

But of course there isn’t,

there never would be 

You’re asleep in my backseat 

in an infant car seat

And, God help me,

time is all I have

The sunlight slips through the branches

and I hope you know I love you

Let me take your little hand in mine,

show you all the ways you can be loved

Take the time and make it something worth

having had, something worth letting go

Teach myself blindly,

blindly how to set it free

I thought you left me

by Olivia Gwyn

I feel you lay the sun on my skin

like a blanket in December 

Feel your hands in my hair 

like the wind

I thought you left me,

I whisper

You are not angry,

but instead soak me in sunshine 

You were never good at keeping your distance

instead, this—

You, in the sun and the laughter,

a reason to wake up in the morning,

cinnamon toast and a new set of markers

I’m in the kitchen surrounded by 

girls, now women, I love

and you are there

I remember again

how much you love to see me smile,

how you love being with me

Enough to never leave 

The geese are turning their backs on us 

By Olivia Gwyn

Leaving for a land more kind than home 

and I would send you with them

if I knew which way was south

But winter bleeds through the trees 

and I curse the cold and the leaving 

and the wings of the birds that carry them away 

Curse the knowledge that there is a place

that stays warm and waits for them

and that I do not know the way