By Kirsten Neff

We started the day
reading in bed
with too-sweet tea,
comic books,
and a long argument
about a line Archie says
to Jughead

We forgot
I am your mother
how much you need me
to hold you in close
to the warm skin
across my rib
and tell you how
the universe is made
waiting like an open flower
for you

You are my young son
but for a moment
we were the same age
in relative time,
wanting so badly
for our simple thoughts
to correspond
so that we could feel
an order to this place
we're moving through
together