Happy Birthday Alex!

Poem for My Infant Son


That first night,
I made your father
sleep with the lights on
so I could make sure
you were still breathing.
Your brown body so malleable
one false move could
break you forever.
You are all feet and inches,
cooing a song I’ve never heard
in a language I don’t understand.
Yet you have taught us in your own way,
loved us even when we
try, fail, fail again.
That’s what children do.

Baby boy,
my lamb,
my suckling,
my colt,
you look at me like
I am your whole world
but the truth is
you are mine.



(Copyright 2009, CavanKerry Press)