I wish I could have savored
the moments I would have shared with you –
alone on a Saturday night,
fingers sweetly salting
slices of green apples –
and telling you that the sky is blue
because it reflects warm oceans, or green
from the cool pools of emerald lagoons.
Or maybe the sky inherits its hue
just as you do
from the honeyed cerulean color
pooled in your eyes that you inherited from him,
framed by messy black hair that
can’t quite be pulled back or let down,
a trait you inherited from
me.
Still, your hands slipped away before
I could hold them in the palms of mine,
but still I feel your
spring wings whipping against
the nest in my heart and I know you’re
here, the daughter I’ll never hold –
and baby,
I’ll be thinking of you when I see the small
red-crested bird tucked tightly
between the dense needles of the
black hills spruce,
knowing that the fragile robin
is the closest I’ll ever find myself
next to you.
