Fragile Cargo

My sister’s skin still smelled of rubbing alcohol

and that heavy, clinical heat of a recovery wing.

She slid him into the crook of my elbow,

a bundle that weighed less than a gallon of milk

but felt like it could sink me to the floor.

I watched the soft, rhythmic dip

of the fontanelle beneath his peach-fuzz hair.

A tiny engine humming under thin skin,

his skull not even finished yet.

My own pulse was hammering in my wrist,

matching his, a frantic double-time.

Now my apartment is so quiet it hurts.

I’m standing in the kitchen holding a glass of water

and I’m afraid to set it down too hard.