Then & Now

Sue Ellen Thompson

As we left the hospital, our new baby

strapped in her backward-facing seat,

everything ahead seemed unfamiliar:

the Old Post Road leading to the house

in which we’d been alone the night before,

the back door’s heart-shaped knocker that,

when dropped, set two brass putti kissing.

There would be screaming in the night,

fevers rising like floodwater, whole days

when I dare not set her down.

There would be quiet hours watching

as she slept between us, her small,

soft belly moving up and down

beneath the diaper’s oddly fragrant

edge. Forty-five years later,

I drive through our old neighborhood,

gazing at the kitchen window

where I’d pace, waiting

for her father to return, clutching

to my chest what felt like a small sack

of sand still damp from holding back

the tide. This was the joy that I’d

been told would never be exceeded,

no matter how few years of it my life allowed.

I should have floated on that sea

of being needed: I didn’t

know it then but know it now.