when you give an extra late night hug
to your perfect little person
whose little legs in little blue shorts
and little red sneakers
look just like those
of someone else’s perfect little person,
except you are here and they were there.
and that is the only reason you can see
why you get to squeeze him
in the cricket noise night
and she does not.
and for what?
and am i not she, and my he, hers?
what separates me from her, he from him?
when your good luck is almost more than you can bear,
when it becomes the burden of surviving,
when it becomes the burden of surviving,
the responsibility to change the tide of human cruelty,
which pulls us all under like a wave into the night.
when the answer is not
to pull your perfect person closer and be grateful,
but rather to scream,
to cry,
to fight.
but i am just One
and I have Him still waiting,
asleep,
to begin a new day
full of joy and wonder.
Do I tell Him?
Or do I hold the grief
of a mother for her son
in my heart,
and hug him tighter?