For My Wife
Her body is balloon big, huffed
and puffed and growing huge.
Taut with sharing, it protrudes
into her affairs. Awkward, she is
more lovely than the long-legged crane
whose flight she admires. Her tears
are quicker now, her laugh more solemn.
For all of that, she moves
in ways a balloon moves:
a ballet of expectation.
Pairs
She sits ragged
with new maternity,
with a child at her breast,
and those four eyes
share secrets
that a father's do not.
It is a da-da grace
of housecoat and blanket,
mouth and breast:
a total communion
that invites no congregation.
Oh, I am there,
at the table with spoon and fork,
my usual self, but fragmented
by all that hunger,
that grace,
that ragtag purpose.
bkb
used with permission
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