When your wife becomes a mother,
She will not rest until the decorations are up
Or taken down, for that matter.
Before all this,
Holidays weren’t celebrations
The way they are now.
Before, she only photographed
Things like shadows of ducks on ponds,
And rhododendrons, and the dog in a necktie.
A lot, you once thought.
But boy, oh boy, you had no idea how many
Moments she could capture with that phone.
Thousands in the first year of life.
When your wife becomes a mother,
You enter into a lifelong love triangle,
Or quadrangle, or trapezoid, or whatever the angular shape.
Not a circle like it once was, when it was just she and he.
No, you commit to the third or fourth chair,
Sometimes the other table,
When the little warriors,
Your own blood and flesh,
Have won her heart for the day.
But she’ll come back,
And you’ll be there.
You always have been.
With your cologne on,
That new deodorant,
You’ve started putting on at night,
Lying in wait.