Sweet joy, sweet joy, I hum against the kitten cry of my newborn daughter, three days old, who directs her distress at my dry nipple. Home today from the hospital and no milk yet in my breasts. Since the doctors cut her out of me, she has been living on fat reserves and a few drops of the sticky, yellow colostrum I squeeze from my body into her rooting mouth. Baby wolf trying to howl, no sound coming out. Baby polar bear burrowing into white, substance-less snow.
I knew enough from Facebook to recognize the muddy maroon Jeep with the top off when it ran the long red light at North and Main. I was about to turn right when zoom, straight through with a lead foot. I honked loudly and repeatedly until a freckled arm raised a middle finger through the open roof, so I broke New York’s latest traffic law and thumb-punched a text: “Its me u idiot pull over.”
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