Child’s Last Embrace

A poem

Your chest is all that is final
a ship above all waters

Your hands,
as they swivel me up like a sailor
and fall back
on the rise of your belly

Gripless, my small feet slipping,
in an already slipping memory

The kneed archway of your legs,
I balance and heave my smallness upon

And look down around at the world,
at your twinkling face

Before your hands
lift me up
bring me down
take it to rest into a hug

A hug that was my entire body once,
hugged by morning sunlight

Streaming through the topmost window

I slip once again — by the sunlight, by the future, by memory, by my tiny toes that do not know how to.