Poem: December 12, 2019

Thoughts About My Kids When They Were Little

I remember less about you
in those first days

when you were mostly just tiny,
quivering, blind, red
things with little range
and few interests.

You were like raw thumbs,
amoebas in a dish,
jellyfish.

Involuntary reflexes.

I remember we gathered around you,
scientists around a beaker.

We tended you like a fire
that hasn't yet quite taken.

But who can make much
of such things?
Single data points before
you can see the trend lines take shape.

Love, of course, biological
and assumed, but little else
to make any meaning with.

I start to remember you,
to place you in a narrative,
to make sense of you
after a year.

Waddling and laughing.

Little self-guided,
dirt-eating,
messy-haired,
drooling jesters.

Tilted little L's, sitting
in your little worlds,
paying me no mind,

impossibly flopping forward
to take hold of everything
in your radius,

slapping the ground and
constantly crawling
toward danger.

I remember your big
wet, expressive faces,
each a performance:
delight
betrayal
grief
disdain.

I remember your sighs
and the way you looked in hats.

That's when I remember you
first and best,

as little people being people,
so much the same as,
so different from
everyone else.

Your own human stories,
both magical and gross.