Somewhere not here, wherever she is,
if she is—for I would like her to be
in earshot, though none could speak so loud—
I would greet her on my birthday.
She would wake from that one day’s
thin bed of necessity and loss, another year passed,
and she would think of the unborn
she carried, spoke to, shifting a pointy heel
or elbow away from her bladder,
not there, little one, and stay awhile, stay—
and when she thinks of that infant
she birthed into Earth’s air,
heard cry and held most briefly and gave away,
away, at that very moment she would see me,
and I her, and from my pocket I would take a pear,
and from another pocket a folding knife
to quarter that fruit and ease the pips away,
and she would peel for us both a tangerine
and in each of us offering the other half,
our hands would touch.
–
Lex Runciman’s most recent book is Salt Moons: Poems 1981-2016 published by Salmon Poetry, Ireland. An earlier volume won the Oregon Book Award. He lives in Portland, Oregon.