With Her Mouth Full, and: Life without Ice Cream, and: Her Voice, and: Fall on My Knees, and: My Baby Girl, and: Feeding the Fence

With Her Mouth Full

I should be disgusted,or at least, put off-but this is a baby's mouth,full of openness still, a black cavewith a few perfect white headstones,top and bottom, so that even crushed rice and black beanslook pretty inside, and her pink tonguesways like a decoration at a birthday party. There is nothing not-interestingabout the way she mashesher food down to bring it back to her throat;it is worth watching-like bird-watching, maybe,for those who love birds; I love the humanbeing, and here it is-right at the bright beginningbefore we learn to say the wrong thingand to keep our big mouths closedonly when we are eating.

Life without Ice Cream

Watching her scrape the bottom of the bowl,I think how my daughter might have altogether missed ice    cream.In the orphanage they served "sufficient amount of food,never abundance." The heat in summer one hundred and eight.We were there, I felt it, dragged through the steaming park like    one dying.In a planet that suffers such pains,a small thing. In her life,a small lacking-Is it the power of small pleasuresthat makes me think of this,watching her silver spoonsteadily striping the bowl as long as there isthe faintest trace of white cream on the spoon. Then she says,with her dark head bent, Ise shream all gone,matter of factly. Knowing there will be morethe next day, not knowinghow close she cameto a life without ice cream.

Her Voice

Being the first thing I hear each morning,as if some small, exotic bird calls to me,calls, and often, entering,the funky-sweet scent of the nursery, I find her standinglike one giving an ovation, at the barsof her crib. Her stuffed dog lies on the floor,she has tossed him out again.And so I lift him up and hand him over,and she receives him with joy to push himover, again, clapping.It's a party going on in the next roomwithout drinks or gossip,without dips, or introductions. In her bedroomthere is only one chair, which we two share.And no matter how many times people ask, politely,or how many times I answer, to explainthis is impossible; the bond between mother

and child is a wordless secret,calling across rooms from dawn to dusk,and from nightfall to morning again.

Fall on My Knees

I could fall on my knees and thankthat small Asian woman, who put down my daughter and    walked away-perhaps with her hands on her hips, or tucked behind her back,the way our two-year-old moves through crowded rooms,bent forward, rapidly, proving she can go alone.Or points at the ceiling saying hello to mommy,even while I am standing right there in front of her.

Her two-day girl dressed in sky blue pantsa yellow jacket, flowered scarf around her neck-For the last moment she hada daughtershe hid her deep inside the park, as if in a green pocket,or abandoned in a crowded parking lot-or on the steps of the asylum whose iron gate reads in Chinese:"Till all are safely home"-The Official Report offers three versions.We will never know the whole truth.You will never know the whole truth of this girlbut I swear as I'd go on my kneesto thank you for your laborand your sacrifice, our daughter is safein her crib, asleep. I am suresometimesshe dreams of you.

My Baby Girl

I am teaching her the ABCsthough she turns her head awayas soon as I begin, as if to say,I know you're going to bore me,and I bet I can turn away longer. Of course she...