My belly and soul 

Are stretched all out of shape 

In this struggle to contain you

My beautiful child 

My love for you is 

my love for life itself

stretched towards formlessness

Now I am pocked and strained and baggy

(Jumbled and rearranged with pockets and plumps and leaks

In unexpected places 

From the effort of containing you expanding 

My dear child)

bright spark 

A whistling kettle 

Urgent, scalding

Go, Blaze yourself bold across the glorious dark of the universe 

As if life were all there is

And mattered

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Image of a sketch by small child, a blue figure in a drawn frame on brown paper, with an assortment of toys cluttered about the table around the drawing. Image © Sarah D.  

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