Resurrections: More Unpublished Poems
This unfinished sequence, written circa 2001-2, reflects an unhappy experience my wife and I had as foster parents.
The Lost Girl
The palm that doesn't dampen your own.
The heels that don't thump on the stairs.
The whimper that doesn't need water at three a.m.
The giggle that doesn't wake you from your nap.
The burp you don't shush at the dinner table.
The goal you don't cheer.
The knee you never bandage.
The math problem you don't help with.
The boys you don't interrogate.
The nights you don't lie awake.
The groundings you never order.
The recitals you don't attend.
The hypocrite you're never called.
The embarrassment you never suffer.
The time you never spend wishing you were reading.
The envy you never wonder about.
The hostility you never fear.
The astonishment you're never overwhelmed by.
The goodbye you never say.
Unadopted Child
In my dream I attended her funeral,
but she was there too, standing beside
my wife, shaking her head sadly
and looking down at her own small coffin
as it was lowered into the earth.
"It's sad you had to die," she said to me,
head still shaking. And when I tried
to protest, say, "It's not me, it's you,"
I suddenly knew it was me, though I
could hardly fit in such a small box.
But part of me could. And did.
Encouragement
"After all, there are other children--
thousands of them!"
History
Three meals, an overnight:
her pajamas and crooked teeth.
Chocolate kisses. Hot tea.
Her suspicion-veiled eyes,
her heavy hurt.
Scene
Breathtaking
as she runs--
even
away from us.
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