every time
in the night
especially the first few days
the first few weeks
the first few months
but even now
still
19 months later
when one of sadie’s small mid-night cries
comes through the wall
between the nursery and our bedroom
then delayed a second
also through the nest cam monitor
on the table by your side of the bed
the sound of her cry
startles the arc of my heartbeat
and rolls me towards the sound
to see if there is anything i can
if there is anything i should
do
this is just one small fact
one small instinctual fatherly reaction
but i have been developing this formula
ever since her first sounds
interrupted themselves into our sleep
i take that measureable change in my pulse
and the angle of my eyelids opening
as if to better hear her needs
and i add them together
and then i make the following modifications
to exactly determine
how exactly the reaction to the same sound
is different for you
is stronger for her mother
i multiply my value by the days
you waited to be pregnant
the days we spent trying to make this tiny human
the minutes you spent at baby showers for your friends
who seemed to get pregnant seamlessly and immediately
and then 100 times points for the days
you carried our kicking baby inside your body
i add 5 to the value
for each lovenox injection i gave you
in your belly
every night for over nine months
25 for each injection of progesterone in oil
delivered with an 18 gauge needle
into the sweet tenderness of your right butt cheek
but i do subtract 5 for the fact that i tenderly rubbed the injection site
as instructed
because i like to think you enjoyed that part
10 for each other required injection
and various indignities
and ultrasounds
and blood draws
and urine samples
30 for each contraction you had
in the last trimester
and 50 for being able to keep the car on the road
in the middle of the worst that braxton hicks style
had to offer
i include the surface area of your small intestine
the surgeons worked through after the cesarean
to find the kink that Sadie had been yanking on
like a bus stop pull cord
to let you know she wanted out a couple of days early
i use as an exponent the minutes
you fed her from your body
latched and loaded in the nursery
and on the couch with the boppy
i add the times
you reached across the bed to her nest
and pulled her over for another nighttime meal
in the months before the nursery
i multiply the currently resulting value by a factor of 3
to account for the 3 big boxes of twin-bed-sized maxi-pads
you had to wear for weeks afterwards
as Sadie’s old room cleaned itself out of your body
i add the ounces of sweet milk you created
with an extra factor of 5 for those you extracted with suction
with a machine
at work
at lunchtime
in your office
i put parentheses around all of the aforementioned items
and then cube that value
simply because your heart
is that much larger
more capable
and that much more cubicly mooshy than mine
and it is at this point that i know
i could go on forever
adding each thing you did
so perfectly the day before
each day having something different
to consider into the formula
i hope that the calculation
described it in this tender treatise
can encapsulate all of the future variables
and that i can leave it on its own
as a living proof
multiplying its result
in an eternally exponential cascade
so that now
i can more completely focus
on the three
that we have made
from two
