Her head in my hand, I felt the curvature of her small skull. Being only just born, soft spots dotted the surface of her head like smooth craters on the moon but were masked by the black night sky that is her hair. With her body swaddled in a pink nursing towel, I carried her in the crook of my arm, rocking her cocooned body, already thinking about when she will break free from it, already feeling the maternal ache of loss. I shook my head at myself. There is joy here. There is accomplishment, I tell myself. I carried this child in my womb for months from spring summer now fall. I heard her thumps, felt the soft hands slam against the ba