Amsterdam Long Window by Donna Spruijt-Metz

What does it mean
to owe someone? A cocoon
a small blue egg, a chrysalis? One night,
looking through the dark
window of the bedroom, the wind fierce,
10 on the Beaufort, true Dutch
weather, trees like ships listing
southwest, boughs wilding
no discernible pattern, one breaks under the force,
crashes through a windshield
across the street.

I see myself
reflected in the glass of our tall
bedroom window, cradling my belly, hands
new to this language
of trying to send comfort under duress
using only touch, trying
to control my signals to say—any moment
I will see him careen around the corner
on his twenty-five-dollar bike, he will
come back to us windswept, boyish
and smiling. I am trying not to say—
what will we do if he doesn’t? Trying not to say—
he is stubborn, I am fearful, and you
my child—I don’t know you yet. I don’t know
what you need.

Donna Spruijt-Metz is a poet, translator, and Professor of Psychology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Her poetry has appeared in venues such as the American Journal of Poetry, Naugatuck River Review, and Poetry Northwest. Finishing Line Press published her chapbook, Slippery Surfaces in 2019.