Breeding at the End of the World

All the animals in my infant’s world 
are almost extinct. She is wrapped 
in a brown bear towel after I wash 
her in a bath shaped like a whale.  
What little I know of whales and mothering. 
A wide-eyed tortoise glows green into the night

making her room a starry starry night.  
A galaxy, a wonder world, 
her menagerie is full of mothers. 
The panda and her baby ball of cotton wrapped 
in matching flannel. The whale, 
another, hangs alongside a wash 

of nearly dead mammal mothers. They wash
over her as she gives into the night
hum of rhino, lion, narwhal,  
and giraffe spinning above her head. What world
am I leaving her? Each night I wrap 
myself in sheets and cry. Is this mothering?  

A baby elephant lays down to starve when its mother 
is killed. A baby polar bear washes 
itself in snow unaware of its melting. Wrapped 
around its young, an orangutan builds another night
nest to replace its stolen arboreal world. 
Statistics swallow me whole. She wails

into the dark that’s heavy as a whale’s 
sunken skeleton. My mother 
did not warn me of this sad sad world. 
We dream feed, both half asleep and washed 
in milk. It’s a marvel we survive each night. 
The morning heat slants through the room and wraps 

everything in prisms. She wakes and wraps 
her fingers around mine, spouts bubbles like a whale.
I kiss her toes with red wolf gnarls. My nightmare 
lingers. I whisper mama, mama 
to her nose and sing a Spanish song of colors to wash
away the troubles of this mundo.  

My tiny whale, how much I want the world 
to feel like home tonight. The sky washes
everything it touches, wraps us tightly like our mother.