and then you’ll have a child,
the first of maybe a trio
of slippery-skinned
shrieking new humans.
Over a bunch of months
you’ll watch the globe
inside your partner expand,
family members placing
a hand above the navel
to feel a kick, a thud
to incur a exclamation of glee,
at the idea of a person
on the edge of expulsion,
an uncooked multi-limbed being
you helped invent.

Then there will be nights of no sleep,
the traipsing to the cry
of your writhing baby,
all tears and open mouth bawl,
hoping you’ll supply
a response to pacify the mind.

There’ll be a morning
when you peer in the mirror
and see a single thread
of silvery hair
or tiny crimson quivers
in the whites of your eyes
and your child
will ****** a picture
to your chest
crammed with crude scribbles
of a sunny scene
and you’ll wonder
if it will ever be real again.