Night draws weary souls to sea. Jude has caught onto the pattern over the years: the aimless pacing from room to room. The slamming of doors. The stench of brine and liquor permeating through their living room. Even when morning reels in these despondent loved ones, bitter remnants of their departure linger in the household—a heavy humid thing.

I have seen a red kneed tarantula lend herself a rebirth, like a closed bulb of waxy night opening for day, she starts off on her back pushing a fresh life out the new legs wrestle with old

I married him to spite my old lady. Turns out I didn’t know what true spite was ‘til I was dripping nail polish on his glove.

I am in love with my shoplifter. Paying customers may come and go, but it is the light footstep of my beautiful thief that quickens my heart.

I remember the first time I heard my mother cry; her knees buckled before she dropped, her fists shook, raised sideways. Her voice crackled like an earthquake. Hairlines morphed into fault lines

a luminous crack across the dashboard window splits the tender sky and I watch light like a smooth river stone, gray light that forgets, graveyard light that washes his hands, baptizing them in my memory,

and still, the wheel turns

From the moment of conception I’ve been thickening.

Body, skin, heart congealing. A holy process, motherhood condensed the chatty tomboy who never raised her hand into its mold, as it did my mother before me: