The lint trap.
A larger version
of the same thing is
the closet, the pantry.
Smaller again: the edges
of my son’s eyes
in the morning,
the bladder,
the intestine,

the womb.
Early pregnancy often
described as “cells knitting
together.” You can’t help
but imagine tiny needles
working red threads.

An old college friend
writes, “stick, baby stick,”
to all her followers after IVF
and it’s uncomfortably intimate
but I find myself repeating
the phrase in my head like a
cheer, a chant. For her,
for everyone.

Where was I?
There’s the mind, this list,
too. Paper in general.

A classmate of mine once wrote
about journaling as night fell,
about the words seeming to grow
legs, become insects, ants,
while she scribbling on because,
well, she never wrote why
she didn’t just turn on a light.

Maybe the words did come alive
in the pressing darkness,
became flies, moths, gnats, whining
the same way thoughts do,
and the paper was
maybe suddenly sticky and
sweet-smelling and it wasn’t really
within her control anymore
and she just cheered,
“stick, baby, stick!”