6th

Birth

I wasn’t there
When you were born.

I was in a parking lot
At L.L.Bean
When we got the call.

I was in Maine.
It was four months after
She passed away
When you were born.

It was two months later
When I met you.

Pepe and I drove to Virginia,
My second time there.

(There will be other times
To describe the first.)

One brilliant short week
And then back to Maine.

And then one month
And then a long time
Before we parted again.

A very, very long time.
The best time
Of my life.

The first year
Of your life.

***

1st

The Breakfast Club
Gave you the bucket hat 
On your first birthday.

You loved your time
With them,
A whole suite
Of grandparents,
Including Charlie,
The oldest,
The most frail,
But you kept him
Somehow young,
For that brief moment in time.

You toddled,
And you blossomed;
I don’t know,
This whole year
Floated along somehow,
And so much seemed
So natural.

***

2nd

And in September 
We traveled up to Maine
To stay with Pepe 
For a year
And Mommy went 
To Korea
Into a phone,
And this was
The best time,
All the time,
When you plopped yourself 
In my lap
To read books,
Absorbing the world,
Taking it all in
Taking it on,
Taking it over…

***

3rd

And somehow
It ended all too quickly
And we went back to Florida
(Sorry, skipped that trip
That saw our first time together;
There will always be more
To say),
And set up
A playroom
And found the parks
We would steal away,
And rediscover Mommy,
Learning to separate,
Learning child development,
In the same but different ways, and…

***

4th

Just before this birthday 
You ride your bike
In an empty house,
And just like that
You’re gone,
And…

And…

***

5th

And…

On your fifth birthday
I don’t even get
To talk to you.

So much time
Between phone calls.

That evening
Is a whole story itself
That I will not talk about here.

We last saw each other
In person 
At the wedding
The previous December,
Stolen moments 
On a Saturday,
Too short a season
But while it lasted
A bright eternity,
Like slipping back
Into the past.

***

And 6th

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry 
It can be so hard.

I’m sorry
That it’s so hard
To reconcile
The life that was
And the life that is.

I never know
If I’ve made your life better
Or more difficult.

I only ever wanted
What was best
For you.

In this moment
It’s a little difficult 
To see which one
It was.

But there is still
A lifetime 
And I hope
I made
It better.

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