Take Pictures

by Jane Terrell

Takes me back 20 years, this photo. The blink of an eye and he's a baby again, resting on my breast, his hand soft as a butterfly's cocoon, skin chaste as sunflowers, face round as a wheel. And now he's laughing, every cell alert and suffused with coppery light, shimmering, like honeybees drinking marigold light. tucked into the shelf of my hip, he's laughing; with bright, clear flames dancing, his ardent eyes meet mine, the oxygen they drink. Like sunshine, nothing hinders the love pouring from his hand; nothing divides us, not even a body. At night, hand curled on my cheek, he sleeps gold-lit moon on my shoulder; in his dreams, he laughs. Finding my breast in the dark, his eyes glowing like earth from black space, my son suckles like the unceasing pulse of rivers, the sun's steady flame, the drum beat at the planet's core. I am the liquid stardust he drinks, the hands on his back as he sleeps on my chest, the star-lit womb. And when he cries, he leaves a gap for laughter to escape his well of sorrow, a spring where laughter can burst through. Holding tight to my neck, my son trusts - he knows no other way - my touch lightly dries his tears. I am his queen, his goddess, handily his slave. Blink, it's a photo again, a trick of the eye, a frozen captive of time, paper, light and silver: my son is a grown man: he drinks from his own hand. Reader, I urge you, spin slowly, take pictures, remember to laugh.