Yellow Bowl 

If light pours like water
into the kitchen where I sway
with my tired children,

if the rug beneath us
is woven with tough flowers,
and the yellow bowl on the table

rests with the sweet heft 
of fruit, the sun-warmed plums, 
if my body curves over the babies, 

and if I am singing,
then loneliness has lost its shape,
and this quiet is only quiet.

From Haywire by Rachel Contreni Flynn. Copyright © 2009 by Rachel Contreni Flynn. Used by permission of Bright Hill Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.