Chilanga Sprinkles

I lie next to the tiny human. She is flesh of my daughter, and so she is flesh of my flesh. I’m supposed to sleep. Instead, I lie awake while she sleeps, guarding her. But really, I am just selfishly delighting in her newness. A day shy of four months, she lies bow-legged, her arms symmetrically bent, her palms open and relaxed on either side of her head. Her belly rises and falls in the exaggerated way of fresh humanness. She makes waking noises, not a whimper, not a babble, in fact, it might not even be a noise coming from her mouth, but rather from a shift in her whole body as consciousness attempts to intrude on sleep. I roll on my side, face her, and gently place my hand over her chest and abdomen, not quite letting it rest, just hovering, enough pressure on her tiny body to let her know she is not alone and can continue to sleep in safety. Her tongue and lips suckle at an invisible breast. My own breasts, inactive for so long, feel the ghost of a tingle and my nipples stand at attention, waiting for milk to squirt out. But they are an extinct volcano. I get up and take the breast milk out of the freezer and put it in the warmer, for when she wakes.