By Rachael Quinn Egan

On her back,

tiny arms outstretched,

naked but for the cloth across her hips.

Jesus Christ in a baby costume.

Her chest oozing blood through a cross hatch patch from neck to sternum.

The room so bright and golden,

walls of bunnies and red foxes

and the scent of baby powder,

and the spirits of all the dead babies.

Sleeping.

I'd pressed my ear to her before,

heard the blood inside swooshing through holes.

Her holy heart, they said, the size of a walnut, will one day turn her blue.

Delighted by my hair tickling her body,

oblivious to her own fragile mortality,

smiling her pure pink gummy smile,

blessing me.

My heart,

strong and hard,

a vault built of letters wrapped around it,

glued together with tears,

elegantly scripted prayers,

devolving into ugly scrawling,

hateful, shameful, rage full, pity full letters,

until the final one,

typed neatly,

simply dismissing, God.

On her back

bleeding through tubes,

her small hand uncurls.

I press her palm with my finger

and a ghost whispers,

You don’t have what it takes anymore,

so leave through the window, fly away down Broadway,

back to where you started writing, girl.

See, I'd packed away everything I'd ever needed in the vault years ago,

along with the promise, wonder, music, and butterfly kisses.

I’d squeezed and crushed her into limbo,

always the uninvited witness

to baby showers,

birthday parties

and diaper commercials,

but never the Mama,

I’d shut that thing down.

Suddenly, her fingers curl over mine and

shoot me a response

to every single letter I ever wrote

and I get it.

It has always been about her.

I do as I am commanded,

crack open my heart

and pull my soul back out,

give it a shake

and get dressed.

She and I cry

with pain and fear and ecstasy,

her heart and mine, patched up with Gortex and love,

beat together,

and dance to the greatest music at the greatest party on earth.

I have seen God

in a gift from another,

on the face of a baby,

and in her tiny holy heart.