My Beautiful Little Boy

9 months of loving you while you grew in my belly. Of wonder and wondering and quiet dreaming. Of sitting on the patio and meditating with hands over big round belly where you lived and moved and we talked to each other. Watching the garden and the birds. 26 hours of breathing and mental balancing, of deep muscle pain and no escape, of focus and knowing that it would end in happiness and holding you and rest. Hard hard work, sweat, exhaustion. and then the moment came, you emerged, you made your descent. And we lost you.

Instead of my baby they gave me this basket full of metal objects to carry around everywhere I go. It is very heavy. I drag it behind me. When I wait in line at the post office, when I go to work, when I go to bed. When I get up. Especially when I get up. Rusty, random loveless things instead of you, instead of my soft, beautiful child.