Child’s Last Embrace
Nov 27, 2022
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.