to have a human stir, letting awake
flood in, putting unasked long blonde
tresses leavings on your shoulder,
resting head upon the empty crevice
where your shoulder and arm dip,
requiring
filling,

to have a child read you to sleep, a partnership, and awake hours later
his hand cusping your chin, and that
sensation makes an old man go
knee weak
even forty five years
later

despite that the woman left you, claiming
a lack of fufillment?

and that child now a forty five year old man,
has excised you from his life, and doesn’t plan or attending a future funeral,

it is still your **best privilege