My daughter calls out 

By Olivia Gwyn

“Dada!” for the first time through the phone

and her dad is only sixteen minutes away 

on his way home when she says it

It’s not until we are laying in bed 

at the end of the night that he tells me

he’s never in his life wanted to invent teleportation so bad

I lay in bed and think of every dad 

FaceTiming their daughter in a different country 

Another lonely night in a lonely room 

at the end of a lonely week with no end in sight

except an envelope of cash to send home 

Food in their bellies and a frown on their face

at the end of the day, calling “Papa! Papa!”

and he is still gone

We sit comfortable in our comfortable homes, talking 

about how we would move heaven and earth for our kids 

and scoff, berate and condemn any who would dare try

They put us to shame as

we watch them on sinking boats,

are we blind?

Our minds a blank page, void of any capacity 

for imagination or truth that we see a woman

carry her son onto a boat that we know now will sink

And cannot fathom that there were knowable, terrible things 

that led her to take a thousand steps to get there?

We sit on our couches, with the A/C and monitors on,

and stare at our phones with glazed eyes, scorning 

at their otherness, which has been carefully contrived

By cowards who tell you they should’ve stayed—

as if they weren’t people, humans, moms and dads 

who agonized over every decision or alternative 

And would give anything, everything 

for the hope of having an option,

something better than watching their kids die

And you should be grateful for how little you know 

and completely ashamed for how little you care 

and how shamelessly you have not even tried

 

“This could be the last time—”

By Olivia Gwyn

That’s what my dad said on the best night of the year,

so I guess I’ve always been waiting for the end 

Always people are leaving and happiness is ending

and enjoy it while it lasts is just 

grief wrapped up in a pretty bow

I’ve always believed this curse 

and it’s always proving me right

At least until you 

Not breaking the curse, but

you, staying, staying 

It’s a miracle to have someone who

is never bored with you, listening, looking at you, laughing with you

You rub my hand so gently with your split thumb 

I could cry

I was alone and then there was you

You’ve never left as the birds migrate and the crickets die out, the frogs grow quiet, the morning doves call through the trees

Death is a distant thought silhouetting you

pointing out the sunset,

our daughters feet in the grass

You can’t believe her 

and I can’t believe you, 

the way your eyes light up after all these years 

The crickets a soundtrack of time, leaving, forgotten 

 

Warm-blooded arms 

By Olivia Gwyn

Olivia,

don’t be afraid

I know your father sometimes

warned you what other men

would think about you

And it made you wonder,

worry what he thought of you

Don’t worry

Here’s the house where you

stepped on a yellow jackets’ nest 

and filled your mouth with water

cold from the hose

You walk down the steps

and bask in the jasmine scent,

the lizards warming their 

cold-blooded bodies 

Jump down from the porch,

trust your ankles to carry your weight

I promise, you no longer

bang your feet up the wooden steps,

cold-blooded with shame

after being told to change

The most beautiful part of

your body is it is safe

Remember to be gentle with yourself,

little one

Olivia, are you listening?

You can hang streamers from the rafters,

make the temple a celebrated-in place

Yes, here’s a room

where the walls

feel like home

The stained glass light 

stretching, bathing you in—

what?

Start to remember the words 

echoing in a different tongue

One from the foyer in the house 

where the hardwood was cast,

like spilled paint,

in warm afternoon light

And you used to lay in it,

like the cold-blooded animal you were,

looking for something outside of yourself

Remember—

Here is the room with the stained glass windows

and the streamers and the open door

I was with you on the hardwood floor

and on the Sunday morning steps

and on your bed when you tried not to think

I brought you safe to a place where you are,

where your daughter

will fling herself, laughing,

from the streamer hung walls 

The colored banners will hold

the weight of all her trust and fears

She will fall into warm-blooded

arms and know that she’s—

—Olivia?

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 

It’s you, isn’t it?

 

It’s you, isn’t it? 

By Olivia Gwyn

I would bring her to him

I would lower her down hand over rope-burned hand 

if I knew the building he was in 

I keep asking, asking 

I start to believe he isn’t really there,

but it’s you I’m talking to, isn’t it? 

I carry her on my back going in circles 

telling the air I can’t find you, 

but it’s you listening, isn’t it? 

You are the air and I am breathing you 

ragged through my lungs

pleading for you to help her, help me

You are not mean

you are not angry

you are just quiet when I want you to be loud 

Drown out the sound of all my insufficiencies, fears 

and give me one breath of fresh air to scream

something to hope in

Instead, you are just here 

and I don’t know what to do 

with you in my veins and lungs 

Beside me 

not leaving 

or saying a word

Like the wind

or maybe

a friend

I’ve stopped trying to write what I don’t know

I’ve stopped trying to write what I don’t know 

By Olivia Gwyn

Instead—

the scattering of the leaves, the underside of the branches, the soft mud underfoot and the gentle unforeseen passing of days 

The weeping of the willows in my best friend’s backyard in June, her parents insisting we wear helmets, me, proud and foolish, determined to ride with

The wind in my hair, the world flying by my eyes, my heart too slow, too young to imagine what they feared, what they knew

How much there still was to lose

and how full my hands are,

how easily something could fall 

The real thing

The real thing

By Olivia Gwyn

I am trying to make a life, 

but I have to make dinner

and get my baby to sleep, 

but she won't go to sleep

So I strap her on me and boil pasta

and rock her and sing and

start to wonder what's wrong with her

– I mean, me

Until I finally get her down

and take a deep breath

and remind myself

this is the whole point

Until she wakes up 

and interrupts

my poem about her

and I forget

What a gift –

the real thing

These are the days

These are the days

By Olivia Gwyn

I catch my breath 

as the air pours through the windows

 

And it hits me out of nowhere

how many more times in my life will I get this view on a night like this

 

When the fields smell of fresh grass and damp earth and old hay

and the crickets are singing

to the darkness or the moon or each other

 

How many more drives home 

when home is a simple word 

 

It hits me like a bag of cement to the gut–

you’re going to miss this

 

Everything is changing

and it happens so fast

and we wish it away

for the next the better the best

 

But it never comes 

because there is only today 

and today is all we get

 

Only tonight–

the thin clouds

the lone star

the invisible brightness

headlights on the road

one hour down

on the way home

on the threshold of summer

 

Because all of a sudden two years from now is a week from Tuesday 

and nothing's ever going to be the same

 

So let me breathe in the air

and let tonight be tonight

Let me drive the roads of monotony

and let it settle in my bones

Let me feel it while it’s here

let me ache let me cry let me bang my head against the steering wheel turn the music up run my hands through my hair and be still 

 

Let me know that I am alive

and these are the days

These are my days

God–don’t let them slip away

I love my cold ears on your collarbone

 

I love my cold ears on your collarbone 

By Olivia Gwyn

After I have been sitting 

on the porch where

the sun hasn’t reached 

We have been snap-ish 

with each other all morning 

and there is no good reason 

There is forgiveness,

thank goodness,

even for the smallest things

So when you laugh

I take hold of it

with both hands 

The sun touches my toes

and the coffee grows cold 

and a long morning is just

Another chance to make you laugh

and for you to kiss me on my neck

for as long as we both shall live 

In the meantime

 

In the meantime

By Olivia Gwyn

Someone is throwing a housewarming party for their friends,

loaves of bread are being brought and bowls of rice are being filled

Someone notices the leaves falling from the trees for the first time,

and a baby discovers their toes, wide-eyed

Someone is getting complimented at the register in the coffee shop 

and going to be thinking about it all day 

A middle aged mom is have a sleepover with her college best friends,

and someone is smiling at a text on their phone late at night

If you look closely, all around us,

someone is noticing someone,

somebody is making someone feel less alone

And it’s not much,

maybe not even enough,

but it is something

And it is something

for us not to forget to look

And there are reflections of stars

in the black of the river

if you stay 

long enough to notice the light 

What else is there to say?

What else is there to say?

by Olivia Gwyn

He made love to me like my body was a miracle

and now a miracle is forming inside me

And I worry you forget that

I’ve never done this before

But the Giver of life put life-giving in my veins 

where my blood flows and pours out 

and it is an outpouring of love

My daughter is born of blood sweat and tears 

like you

from the body of a woman

Holy holy holy 

is the Lord God

in the dirt, covered in blood

from the legs of a girl

who had never done this before

You said ‘do not be afraid’

and I bite my tongue to keep from rebuking you

I imagine the angels words 

ringing in her ears

as she watched you 

covered in your own blood 

hit the dirt

'Afraid'? My God

There are not words for what she felt

as she wished you back to the

blessed and cursed dirt 

where you lay crying and alive 

and covered in her own blood

My God, my God, why—

I believe in the dark that

you know a mother’s grief better than I 

So when you say,

‘I will not leave you as orphans,

I will come to you’

I am begging you

bent over my steering wheel 

pressing my palms to my eyes

unable to breathe 

against the weight of a dying people

I beg you to come to Palestine

as a destroyer 

and a mother

like a river in a dry land 

'Let my people go'

I am a broken tape—

what else is there to say?

“When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy… Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams in the Negeb! Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.”

‭‭Psalm‬ ‭126‬

I have been touched all my life

by Olivia Gwyn

I have been touched all my life

in so many insignificant ways

So it catches me by surprise 

to be caught by surprise on a June day 

while my feet are burning on the sand

It's always strange to bare your heart

to someone who's known you 

since you were a child

That's why it feels almost embarrassing 

to ask my Pawpaw if he want to come to the beach with me

when I know he doesn't go as much since knee surgery 

I beat around the bush and say he can come if he wants to 

when I really want him to know that I want him to

He's always been quiet,

even before the war 

I wish he never went, 

younger than me and foolish and in love 

and nowhere else to go

Except halfway across the world

where people were afraid and hurting and helpless and in love, too,

and nowhere else to go 

Anyway, he never talks about it

I feel kid-ish when he says he'll come

and he loads up the cart same as he's always done

since I was too young to remember

He carries the chairs and hands me 

his water bottle to carry in my bag

It sweats all on my book and I don't mind

I slow my pace to match his 

My feet are burning

on the cement-colored sand

when he asks me if I need him 

to put sunscreen on my back

I wasn't going to ask, but I say yes,

and I get a lump in my throat

at how gently, deliberately he rubs it in

His hands are leather

and we are quiet,

the only sound the wind off the sea,

blowing my hair in my eyes, the sand on my feet

I almost cry–

how many more times?–

at what it means to be cared for

The sunscreen spread carefully

down the curve of my back

How rare, how precious to be touched

by someone who stands to gain nothing by it

We cool our feet in the water

and laugh about how bad we are at telling the tides

and he asks if I can take a selfie of us in our chairs

On the way back home

I tell him I don't know why I didn't just tell him 

I wanted him to come

I guess I didn't want to make him do something he didn't want to

I guess I wanted him to want to

I guess I'm still scared of being seen wanting

But there are only so many June's when you are 25 and 76

and I will not spend them afraid of loving you

It is a privilege to love you every June we get

and I will still be loving you every June 

While I am missing your hands on my back in the heat,

wrinkles lined by ripples of sunscreen, 

hand over gentle hand

I am staying busy

I am staying busy 

by Olivia Gwyn

The sky fades to pink, lilac,

deep indigo,

black

I am busy loving you 

when the darkness comes 

I keep myself busy, ignoring 

the sound of the unknown knocking 

at the apartment door 

I am busy kissing you on the lips 

and carrying our daughter on my hips 

I stay busy looking up at the leaves

and placing books on hold at the library 

I am planning my daughter’s Halloween costume

for two years from now when I can’t see my hand 

held right in front of my face 

I am busy filling up notebooks, slowly, slowly,

letting the shower head rinse my hair

Feel it flow down my scalp 

running, collecting in rivulets over

my neck where my hair no longer falls 

I am running my hands through my hair 

and crying when I feel afraid 

and learning not to cower from the darkness 

Look at the light all around me

Let me press it into paper,

find my scissors and cut it into pieces,

folded over and over again, to confetti

Spread to the masses 

like You fed the 5,000

Abundance from lack,

enough from nothing,

faith like ashes

How generous You are to show us,

even when we were too stubborn to see

I am staying busy,

like the jar of oil 

in the hands of the widow

who had no reason to believe

Where I thought the darkness 

would consume me—

Bread and a little oil,

more than enough to go around

— olivia gwyn