I wrote this poem when he was just a couple of months old, when the night seeped into the day like an oil spill in fresh water, when our needs were an inseparable tangle of basics, when it was just the two of us at 4 in the morning, nursing in a dimly lit room. Having no free hands, I would roll the words around in my mouth, fitting them together like puzzle pieces, repeating them over and over to remember for a time when I had a pen, so in awe of the fact that this was a being who very shortly before, simply wasn’t.

(Recipe for The Ultimate Recovery Congee follows)