The Baby
The shadows of the couple enter the dark field, cross silent as a seam having left at the center a white box, white as a box for a birthday cake. Inside, the baby. Abandoned there in the tall grass, in the night wind, he wants for everything: food, warmth, a little baby hope. But the world swirls around the box. The world like a forest goes on and paths go on through it each road leading nowhere, leading away from the baby. Still in the center of the field, his breath rises quietly. Grasses shiver. Overhead, through trees a sound approaches, like wings, or this time, scissors.
From Things Are Disappearing Here, Copyright © 2007 by Kate Northrop. Reprinted with permission of Persea Books.