You play peekaboo with our infant son,
Tickle his belly and babytalk him to sleep.
You’re the same woman I met in grad school,
Now you’re the mother to our children.
How tired we are every night. Is this how it works?
Outside a construction crew tears up the sidewalk.
How fragile the body is and how alone we are
In the universe. Tonight, the wind rages on
Against the trees, whipping telephone wires and
Roaring outside, throwing debris around.
I am in bed wrapping myself around your body
Closing my eyes, holding on to dear life.
Bunkong Tuon is a Cambodian-American writer and critic. He is the author of Gruel, And So I Was Blessed (both published by NYQ Books), The Doctor Will Fix It (Shabda Press), and Dead Tongue (Yes Poetry). His prose and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in New York Quarterly, Copper Nickel, The Lowell Review, Massachusetts Review, The American Journal of Poetry, carte blanche, Diode Poetry Journal, Paterson Literary Review, Consequence, among others. He teaches at Union College, in Schenectady, NY.