Newborn Haze

And sometimes I think of my own mother,
how we lay in the margarine winter light
girl skin to girl skin, her purple nipple
grazing my mouth, hands stung with onion,
hair floating across my face, the ceiling fan
ticking, ticking, and my father
fiddling with the camera, slides of me
falling onto the windowsill, his olive hands
carrying me through the black and white
haze of the apartment—nowhere to go,
nothing to do, the three of us
half-drunk, hungry, naked,
breathing together for the first time,
for the last time.