Two Days
Two days after my daughter’s birth, jaundice sets in.
Doctor’s orders: sunbathe or else phototherapy.
Two days after my daughter’s birth, the sun beams into the apartment
like a beacon and I assume the task of moving my girl towards health.
Three decades old, its right arm wobbly, the rocking chair creaks
back and forth as we sway in a square of warm light.
A cap tops my daughter’s head. Blankets that surround her
I open toward the sun, wrinkled arms and legs now bare.
Her dark eyes slowly close. I do not think beyond this moment.
I do not think at all. We rock and the day moves forward.
Julie Brooks Barbour received her MFA at UNC-Greensboro. Her poems have most recently appeared in New Zoo Poetry Review, Public Republic, roger, and inscape.
