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Wall, Paper, Artist

They were overjoyed
to hold you, to have you
in their hands, those

proud dolls
swaying on their
skateboard

pedestals. They were
startled, as the bee's
affectionate jostling

on a windy stem, not yet
back from the dead, dozing
past, following downriver

the heart-burst capes.
Your children possessed you.
They were not yet born.

Neither were you.
The river hungered for
its pale relatives, their

warm-breathed schedules,
their eyes—bells ringing
out of the blueness.

They were to be born
next week, or allow themselves
longer. Now they lie

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with, their outlines
traced by it, their love
and wait, as the lights

on the south-
bound train wait,
for no one.