by Heather Mackay Young
I thought it was dead.
Gifted when my first child was born
the responsibility of keeping both alive
unsettled me.
Now, I have two
children, an orchid and
a dead baby.
How I wish she only seemed dead.
That she might surprise me
push her yellow face to the window
the centre of her purpled,
dappled in white.
I would want the first thing she drank
to be light—