Schrödinger's Mother

In the early days of your life,

I drift in and out of the twilight wakefulness

that comes with young parenthood,

dazzled by the phenomenon of you, astonished at

the perfection of miniature fingernails,

and features coated with implausibly fine hairs.

Joyfully rising in darkness at the call of that

heartrending sound that fishhooks the soul

and causes pangs of sharp and involuntary lactation,

a cry both infinitely vast and excruciatingly tiny,

my body is drawn to envelope your small body

desperate to soothe, quiet and, at last, pacify you.

When, after many weeks of sleep deprivation,

the morning comes and I awaken naturally,

well-rested, stretching to the sound of birds,

I panic doused by the dread of each new parent:

“Why isn’t she awake? What if…?”

then surrender to cool, fatigue-borne reason:

You and I have entered a state of quantum entanglement

in which, while I lie here enjoying a leisurely awakening,

you remain in your cradle, unobserved, both alive and dead,

and I am exhausted enough to hesitate, knowing that certainty

will propel me into either one or another parallel universe

neither of which I am yet prepared to face.               

Andrine de la Rocha

May 2012

posted 5/29/2012