When My Husband Needs to Practice a Physical Exam

image from public domain

All I can think is how last night
I dreamed we had three babies,  

all of them healthy and pearl-boned
and delicate, beautiful silk-skulled,  

and in my dream, I dropped one
on the kitchen tile while cooking, 

forgot another in the bath when
the phone rang—my boss, urgent. 

In my dream, one disappeared from her stroller
while I shopped for eggs on aisle nine. 

I awoke numb, stared at nothing for an hour,
coffee cup chilling in my palm. I burned 

from imagined grief—that grief that is really pain
that is really fear that is really REM sleep that is really  

keeping me from wanting ever to be a mother.
Now my husband, in stethoscope and white coat, 

stands beside our bed. On a scale of 1 to 10,
how would you describe your pain?  

He adjusts my collar, rests the bell on my chest,
says Breathe in, breathe out. 

I do and laugh at the strangeness of breath,
the unthinking of it. 

Last week, after night class, a long drive,
I dreamed he died a gruesome death 

and remembered the details all through my run
the next morning and my drive and my teaching. 

Now he takes my foot in his hands, runs a coin
along my sole, says Do you feel when I do this?  

It is surprisingly intimate. He is still learning
how bodies fit together, all the intricate 

sinews like ribbons, all the muscles and organs.
I watch as he takes my pulse, taps my knee.