fog's rolling in on the east river bank

i’m ready to run. i want to wake up early (earlier than the larks that sleep warm and golden beside me, anyway) and run circles on the track at the park. to slip down at the first crack of light, listening to my shoes clunk along the pavement, past the baseball diamond, the enormous peeling white tree, that bend in the path where the stench of the rotten creek is strong, the curve beneath new trees that smell like summer camp and fire fly fire, the parking lot, the pavilion, the playground, the bathrooms, the drinking fountain.

it’s definitely time to run again. nothing outrageously unattractive about the state of this body. she merely looks like the melting winter, white, soft in too many places. and she feels slow. slow and sleepy. she doesn’t look forward to the screaming of her lungs and the pinch of her side.

my children cuddle up to me and squeeze the fat of my stomach. they poke their flags of ownership into my navel. they knead the skin as though they’re working for bread, constant, from side to side, squeezing and poking and twiddling.

instead, i want their fingers to mindlessly climb the stairs of my protruding rib cage, their curly heads to rest quietly on the firm mattress of my stomach.

perhaps they love the soft swells of my belly because they first found life inside it, underneath it, a dark red world of water and heartbeats, the muffled rise and fall of my voice, ernie’s voice, music, felicity.

henry pushes out his stomach and says he loves his “big tummy.” he washes it in circles with green soap in the shower.

tonight he greeted my mother with a hug and a “grandmamma, i love you. and i love your big tummy.”

every afternoon we tiptoe across the cold floor of the sun-porch to open the back door, the only screen that stayed on the house through the winter. the chimes that i meant to bring inside still hang outside the door, over the patio, under the tree nearest to the house. we can hear their cheerful greeting while we’re still in the bowels of the house. the sun shines and the room is bright and we squint (and sometimes sneeze) when we come down the dark stairs from the shady kitchen to the sun-filled porch.

henry spilled a new bottle of bubble solution on the tile of the porch and slid around for half an hour with a towel “cleaning it up.”

the cold air of pre-spring, air that smells and looks warmer than it is, deceives me and i prop doors with step stools and windows with cans in an effort to send something fresh swirling through this sleeping house. the house is old and has storm windows that are changed from glass to screen in the green of spring, from screen to glass when the sky stays gray and everything else turns from yellow to red to brown to black. the windows and removable pieces are numbered with corresponding round brass buttons flush with the wood. ingenious and wonderful.

tonight the house is dark and creaking. the kitchen is a pile of dishes and smells of onions and curry. the men of the house snore in their sleep, not turning or tossing. the heat has been turned back to make way for better weather. my feet and nose are cold, yet stubborn. we four will stay warm as we pile up together under quilt and blanket, slipping into socks and sweaters come morning, come coffee and raisins and bread with new peanut butter.