Where Were You?

 {Day 11}


I was in a cocoon
three babies under three
smothered by feeding times
diaper changes
nothing was my own anymore,
time or body or space
constantly wriggling to find room
for sleep

Beloved in his own cocoon
wrapped in work
having just graduated
four mouths to feed
breathing was hard
he was wrapped so tight

one day he calls me
tells me to turn on our
shoebox of a telly
"which channel?" i say
"doesn't matter" he says

I was holding two babies,
another clutched my leg
I crouched down
settled them on the floor
while I watched the burning building

i stood there
dumbfounded
phone in the crook of my neck
wriggling babies all over the floor
in the free world

"what is happening?" i say
"i don't know, i don't know" he says
and then
another airplane
making another
gaping
hole

smoke and crumbling

he and I were not
separate in that moment
or sheltered in the cocoons of
our tiny lives

a naivity shed together
exposed to a bigger,
terrifying reality