birth day

Today is my birthday.

May the seventh, 1976, and that makes forty-four.

Your birth day was not so long ago

And this morning,

I watched your toes as you stood,

New walker,

On the kitchen floor.

Little piglets gripping, your body shifted

As you made tiny corrections.

Weight. Balance. Judgment.

Negotiating with physics.

A small thing, standing, can still be

So much work.

I remember the Lost Baby.

A girl, half-grown, moving inside me

As I lay on the table in the OR,

Masked strangers moving around me.

I told her:

“I love you. Thank you. I’m sorry.”

I was so afraid to try again

And when the woman called to tell us

The tests were good,

You were okay,

You were a girl,

Your Daddy laughed out loud and said,

“She came back!”

Oh, my big girl, working so hard.

We are all always making tiny corrections.