I often feel my hands fluttering toward my belly,
As much as I feel my hands reaching out for
the boy who died some months ago.
Not my blood-boy, but my soul-boy,
boy who I worked with every day
bending his knees, signing “food” into his hands,
pushing his stroller through Orton Park.

I cradled his head that always leaned to one side.
Never mind the deformity; it looked like
he was always considering something profound,
although he was nonverbal.
But I knew his speech, the sudden, excited
kicks of his feet.
I knew his doorknob-brown eyes and that
menu of smiles, that variety,
each a different flavor – I knew them all.

Every day I held onto him a little bit more,
feeling him disappear, until one day
we saw only the imprint his body had left
in his bed.
I moaned. I keened. I grieved until I felt
my hands wander toward my belly,
flat and childless, yet I knew I had
a child in there, maybe not a blood-baby,
but a soul-baby, and that he knew the secrets
I didn’t know.

They played and laughed. I knew he’d teach
my one-day baby the right smile to get
me to melt, and that, soon,
and sooner still,
he’d guide that blood-baby down into me
and my husband and I, after seeing the two
pink lines looking like lollipop swirls, would know
I had a little bit of my soul-baby in there
so the one in womb would never be lonely
and so I could learn how to push a stroller
to Orton Park once again.

04/04/2006

Author's Note: written for Lauren DeLegge

Posted on 04/04/2006
Copyright © 2024 Lisa Marie Brodsky