The rain fell. The trickle captured a melody.
The patternless weather sweeps, latching torrential beads
in windshield shadows on a passenger's empty seat.
She's still, retracting to memories.
Today, she learned cribs cannot be returned after assembly.
The calls were the hardest.
Half-written thank-you notes crawled the apartment,
along with stacked boxes and empty picture frames.
The sprawl of an artist,
complete with deep, inflicted pain.
He peeked through the window.
He stalled at the door.
Knock too hard, risk blowing the entire house of cards to the floor.
The exhale releases a Marlboro roar.
"It's just me."
She's in a ball on the floor.
She's in a bawl on the floor.
Stillborn children don't receive birth certificate sets,
so she clutches to her sonograms and fertility tests.
There's a brokenness,
a missing piece of the puzzle
from the fetal displacement that left him feebly muzzled.
The doctors hadn't seen any trouble,
with the umbilical too snug for their screens to uncover
and so tight that his breathing was smothered.
And now,
she's here.
Was she ever even a mother?
He wasn't a father. He's pretty confident of that.
He breathes.
The apartment has all the ambience of an Applebees,
complete with prepackaged dreams and indigestion.
She's hit depression. Approach within discretion.
He was wearing a T-shirt the last time.
It's mid-December,
and the bags under her eyes couldn't begin to carry his guilt.
She didn't tell him directly.
The news sort of trickled through old friends in various spills.
Vicarious chills. Fatherhood, a role he'd've barely fulfilled,
now seemed the only way to repair his milieu.
She's biting her nails down with careless malaise,
leaning against the radiator, hair in her face.
Trying not to stare, he paces.
Questions. Few answers. They weren't important.
The only fresh air's in escape.
But he already ran from it. There's no reprise.
He sits. He cups her hand in his
with open eyes.
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