The Children
Inside me, they were closer than touch:
a cramp, a ripple, a flush of joy.
Once born, an appendage
requiring extraordinary gentleness and care.
A smell: silk/down/water/milk.
It was years before I could
set them at arm's length, consider, nod.
Even now, when I hold
them close I cannot see them
but when I let them go, sprinting
elsewhere across the velvet grass,
their faces are forever clear.