Saturday Night

November 28th, 2006
Thomas

I strip Thomas down for his bath. His naked self always surprises me. He’s so big, and not just in the sense of mass. He’s so solid, so alive. His pink light, unveiled, fills the room.

I slide him into his bath ring and watch him smack the water with his pudgy, stubby hands. I scrub his head with white shampoo foam and dig the lint out of his neck folds and armpits and toe-creases. I haul him out, dripping, rub him down, and stuff his shivering flesh into his blue-and-red fleece sleeper. (Literally stuff. He loves to spread his fingers out when I try to thread his arms into his sleeves.)

I cradle him on my lap, warming him, and hold his bottle while he sucks down six ounces of milky heaven. After four ounces his eyelids begin to flutter and his muscles soften. He sinks into my space, heavy with impending sleep.

I carry him to the crib in his darkened room, lay him down, arrange his limbs just so, and pull up the flannel blanket. He lays on his stomach–head resting on his left cheek, slanted eyelids shut, arms bent up at the elbows. The Christmas lights hang twinkling from the eave outside his window. Pink and blue and yellow and green, the light washes across the carpet and touches his face. He is the picture of nostalgia, rosy-cheeked sleeping cherub, all lovely and clean and still.

As I stand and watch, my cells swell to fulness, brimming over with a breathing prayer: thank you.

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