‘Aubade for JC’, ‘Fatherhood’, & ‘Sadie Miller’
Photographer - Tobi Brun
aubade for jc
while light from outside snow
highlights your white-wired
beard hairs & speckle your dark chest,
i’ve never felt the warmth of another
& safety that hides
in the crook of your neck
waiting for me on this winter day.
any day/all days.
your lips are opened like the wrapping paper
on a christmas gift snuck early
beneath a droopy-needle pine
& your glass-blue eyes flicker beneath
petal-like eyelids. the baby monitor
rumbles with soft-kid-snores & your heavy
breathing gives me a reason to know
i have searched 34 years for
a soft-edged/gentle/quiet/white/
morning love; not knowing you existed
in this light or bed or room or city.
i’ve been looking to find
a push my hair behind my ear for me,
matching initial tattoos at the kitchen
table on the second date,
forehead kisses when you think i'm sleeping
during afternoon naps, & late start
mornings beneath sheets. all i know is
my body shakes itself
inside out beneath you & if that isn’t something
then i don’t know how anything
exists in this world. & yet
during this body-breaking
all is still & there’s no noise,
idea, or being that could bring
me back to before
you & i existed/together.
until this past december, i never
knew of the fusion of beings
or the existence of depending on another.
now it’s here. in the quiet,
that’s not quiet & in the brightness
of light creeping through blinds.
there are interlocking fingers, & legs, hair
spilling onto pillows,& sheet-covered torsos, bent backs,
crooks & crevices, & laid-on arms,
the delicate insides left out -
waiting to be picked
up by another in a world
built of alarm clocks, color-coded
schedules, & calendar pings.
instances of things we never
knew would breathe life into us
found in the early morning/
the stillness of light.
Fatherhood
To witness
you with our baby
tubes running like small
backwood creeks
across the trunk of her body,
the size of your hand
heals the fatherless childhood I had.
A childhood
I didn’t know
the difference
of never seeing a man
provide unwavering gentleness,
rooted like an oak tree.
Never knew how
a soft voice could fill
the spaces of a broken body
& addiction is not woven
into the fabric of masculinity.
Strength is quiet &
intentional &
dedicated & fills up
the room slowly,
an ocean reaching the shoreline
bit by bit.
There was nothing
to compare & yet everything
rests on your shoulders
as your arms
surround her body.
You press her to your beating
heart, for 45 days
straight & I witness
what it means to crack
yourself open
letting the light in
brightening other’s shadows.
sadie miller,
you were named within an hour
on a cross-country road trip
as your dad zipped us
back from kentucky to south dakota,
a state i swore i would never return to.
things change & minds can change too
//remember that when moments get hard &
you worry about what happens
if you learn more or grow & new possibilities
look as sweet as blackberries
try them//
on december 8th i knew things would never
be the same as i sat across from your dad
laughing so deep, i never felt more alive
or more like myself. & every fear i knew
crumbled like dry leaves beneath feet.
now watching you,
nearly 11 pounds at 5 months old,
you laugh fully. mouth extending,
showing mountains of pink gums.
dimples rippling over the pond of your face
//always laugh fully, letting it take over the room
filling up spaces not originally made for you
but you built for yourself//
your siblings cradled you
when they,themselves, were nothing but children,
& prayed your little 3-pound body
would live through the night your heartbeat
dropped. they practiced consoling their cousin’s
baby dolls to be the best for you
//love B & E always
they will always be there for you//
don’t forget that 912 franklin, our home,
is made of board games, art-lined walls, spilled
sodas, zach bryan crooning records, kisses,
& pizza crusts left for dogs to eat.
it’s muddy socks from trampoline jumps,
the best you can do on homework, heavy-gripped
hugs & hands held on couches piled with
extra blankets. there’s always time
for naps, late-night television shows, belly laughter,
paint brushes left unclean, noah kahan stick-poke
tattoos, stories of won recess superbowls,
broken drumsticks, opened books, solved
math equations, empty drawn-on coffee mugs
& everything
in between.
//remember, the best is found in the quietest of moments
& times that feel messy. remember that love isn’t linear
or comes when you want it, but instead, at times you need it.
remember you are the best of us we could offer
& it still won’t be enough for you//
Whitnee Coy has an MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Kentucky University's Bluegrass Writers Studio. She has two chapbooks of poetry published "Kintsukuroi" (Finishing Line Press) and "Cicurate" (SD State Poetry Society) and have been published in various literary journals such as "Havik: The Las Positas College Journal of Arts and Literature" & "Jelly Bucket".
