On Suddenly Having Several Children

God never gives us more than we can take,”
the midwife told us, after catching two—
two—heartbeats in your sonogram. She knew
the kids we had at home and hoped to break
the news gently, I guess. These twins would make
four children under four, nearly a zoo.
We nodded, though her saying wasn’t true.
Then, driving home, we stopped to see the lake,
where twenty yards offshore, an ice floe wallowed,
its ebbing heft half sinking in the press
and gleaming crash of waves. Now, it seemed swallowed; 
now, it seemed free. Into the gloaming that followed,
it floundered, freighted under such excess
but dressed in jeweled lights and foaming crests. 

Second Place — 2026 First Things Poetry Prize