perhappened mag
issue 6: FAIRYTALE
a dream in which
i keep us both alive
CHRISTEN NOEL KAUFFMAN
I have his baby in the arctic tundra.
I dig a hole in the snow drifts so high
above my head it’s as if we are two seeds.
When the dream baby cries, I ask it
to remember the gut of a whale, how brittle
our bones in a grizzly mother’s mouth.
He never comes trapesing through the snow,
feet secure in our one pair of snowshoes,
safe to pluck us up like two ripe beets.
I knew before the dream
I’d have to do this alone, the digging
& the baby in this godforsaken place,
as if like god he would leave me
this work without asking if I’m afraid.
I let the baby nibble on a fox nose,
keep it warm tucked under my own
fattened chin. Together we hunt
ptarmigan to make a feathered crown.
See what I can do?
Hands deep in a caribou’s ribs,
placing the baby inside.
I dig a hole in the snow drifts so high
above my head it’s as if we are two seeds.
When the dream baby cries, I ask it
to remember the gut of a whale, how brittle
our bones in a grizzly mother’s mouth.
He never comes trapesing through the snow,
feet secure in our one pair of snowshoes,
safe to pluck us up like two ripe beets.
I knew before the dream
I’d have to do this alone, the digging
& the baby in this godforsaken place,
as if like god he would leave me
this work without asking if I’m afraid.
I let the baby nibble on a fox nose,
keep it warm tucked under my own
fattened chin. Together we hunt
ptarmigan to make a feathered crown.
See what I can do?
Hands deep in a caribou’s ribs,
placing the baby inside.
Christen Noel Kauffman lives in Richmond, Indiana with her husband and two daughters. Her hybrid chapbook 'Notes to a Mother God' (forthcoming, 2021) was winner of the Paper Nautilus Debut Chapbook Series. Her essays, poems, and stories can be found in A Harp in the Stars: An Anthology of Lyric Essays (forthcoming, University of Nebraska Press), Tupelo Quarterly, The Cincinnati Review, Willow Springs, DIAGRAM, Booth, Smokelong Quarterly, Hobart, and The Normal School, among others.