Nursing Finn

by Leigh Hancock

Six times a day for the past ten months, in the rocker, on the sofa, in lawnchairs on the porch, wedged between two businessmen on a flight to San Jose, cramped in the cab of my father-in-law's truck, by the river, in a mall, at the edges of festivals and moies, we have settled in, Finn and I, his cheeks fluting like a small bellows at a great fire, his eyes fluttering like the most ephemeral of moths. If I practiced the flute so often, I would be good. If my garden received such attention, it would fruit like the arbors of Catherine the Great, where her pensive son Pavlosk wandered for hours. If my breath stayed so steady, my body so still and soft, and if I, and everyone else gave life so freely day after day, would there be a single problem in the world?