wildscape. literary journal

Everything, Even a Shadow
by Allison Mei-Li

My son laces his fingers through mine 
and says, “Your hands are smaller than Daddy’s, 
so your hands must still be growing.” 

I turn my palms up, all lifelines and crossroads, 
a history of everything I’ve held.  

“No, love,” I say, “my hands are all done. 
This is how they will always be.”

He peers up at me sideways, doubtful, 
as if he knows that nothing ever stays 
the same. 

After all, he is growing out of his favorite 
clothes and into the next classroom, 
hair falling over his eyes every six weeks,

and the roses in our yard keep
pressing toward the sky, 
the lima beans still sprouting 
on the window sill. 

Everything, even a shadow,
stretches as the sun falls,
spilling silently across the ground.

Maybe I shouldn’t tell him
that my hands will never change
when every day, they learn 
the shape 	of letting go.

Lasterday
by Allison Mei-Li

My son likes to say lasterday,
which could mean last night, 
or yesterday, or a year ago.
Tomorrow, on the other hand,
means any time that isn’t right now 
and hasn’t happened yet.

He can’t read a clock, 
floats untethered to a calendar 
or day of the week. Wakes up 
from a nap at four p.m. and asks,
“Is it morning?” I tell him it’s not, 
but he argues that the sun is out 
and the joke’s on me. 

He measures time in the space between 
two hands. Pulls his palms close together, 
showing me six inches of air, and says, 
“Only be gone this long, Mama.”

The closest he gets to a real unit of time 
is holding five fingers in the air: five minutes.
When I ask how long he napped at school, 
I already know the answer. Five minutes.
If I offer a half hour of playtime at the park, 
he negotiates for five minutes instead, 
which to him, seems much longer—
a whole hand of fingers. 

I like the way time works for him. 

I want our days together to span 
10,000 inches, to live in this love 
for as tall as a tree. I want five minutes, 
and five minutes, and five minutes more
of the pure bliss of his childhood. 
I hope he will love me tomorrow
as much as he loves me today. 
As much as he loved me lasterday 
and the lasterday before that.

about the author // Allison Mei-Li