by Sarah Dickenson Snyder

The late night of gray light
where no-fear edges out fear
because you are squeezing
trickles of water from a sponge
on a daughter in a warm bath
of oatmeal, her skin puckered
in chicken pox and now your son
wheezing in the next room,
your whole world held
by a net of fraying rope,
your husband wrapping the son
in a blanket to take him to the hospital
and you are well beyond
the threshold of taking care
of yourself. This is where you vanish
and become hands and a heart.
There will be no more days
of making up things to do—
how you loved those dioramas
all those years ago, creating
a small world contained
in a shoebox.

Sarah Dickenson Snyder lives in Vermont, carves in stone, & rides her bike. Travel opens her eyes. She has three poetry collections, The Human Contract (2017), Notes from a Nomad (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2018), and With a Polaroid Camera (2019) with another book forthcoming in 2023. Poems have been nominated for Best of Net and a Pushcart Prize. Recent work is in Rattle, Lily Poetry Review, and RHINO. sarahdickensonsnyder.com