Gazing out from the past
self-assured as this crow
sipping the sky from a puddle---

and young---how could I not marvel
at who I imagined you were
or who I became in your eyes?

Animal pleasure, exuberant,
desire sweetest at the brink.
How could we know

past what we dreamed ourselves into,
spilling into the daylight
of the actual?---

click of a doorlatch, gravel
flung backwards as you left each day
for work, my years with the children.

We looked deeply into the eyes
of our sons gazing back at us
full of news and questions.

Even after they grew into
their own lives,
someone else's child---

just before the school bus
surged into view---
pulled a comb

from a back jean pocket
the way our boys used to,
wanting to look perfect

so the other kids
would like them.
How could any of us

know what we hoped for,
or might lose,
except by choosing?

- Charlotte Gould Warren