the child we could have made

This little boy in church has eyes like yours when you’re about to tell a joke

and wisping brown hair like my toddler pictures, blazing gold

in the sunfall through the arched window,

and a mind that comes up with constant questions

and promptly answers them in movement.

He looks like the inevitable result of the equation of you plus me,

what would happen to the world if we could have made a life together,

the child we could have made.

He makes me feel, acutely, the absence of your shoulder against mine;

I want to nudge you and whisper, “look

at what we could have made,”

because I can’t nudge you and whisper, “look

at what we made,” instead.

Because he’s not wriggling out from under your arm,

making you elbow me accidentally,

making me wince and shake my head at him,

making everyone glare at us or chuckle while he

flirtatiously dangles our car keys at them,

until we sigh and concede that we are defeated by this sum of ourselves

and rock-paper-scissors-shoot I carry him out to the parking lot to run wild

because we both know he’d just stamp and shriek all over the lobby,

the child we could have made.

I shut my eyes while my mind displays all the other things we could have made –

A beautiful home like a snowglobe,

like the drifting sunfall through the window,

like the people we wanted to be,

good and pristine and exquisite,

then shattered into shards and flecks of who we really are.

A bed with separate covers, my side unmade,

yours perfect like the displays from Ikea

because you rarely sleep there.

All the women you replace me with and imaginary yous I create,

infinite infidelities inadequate to fill the clefts inside us.

I see me crying, huddled in corners like I do,

you ignoring me, pretending I’m just crazy and absurd;

me shrugging your hands off when you try clumsily to bridge

the gaps of who we are and who we want to be;

you caring too much and me too little

and vice versa, always, at opposite times;

you asking for peace, me never letting you in,

you leaving, me never letting you go.

A huge mess – that’s what we would have made –

and in the middle of it all,

the child we could have made

and torn apart.

I open my eyes and there he is again, the child so like us both,

thinking of questions, just like me

and acting them out, like you.

Maybe he’s not the child we could have made;

no, maybe he’s our couldn’t-have-made,

and all we were was us asking the Fates “what if” –

because we always have to test things, you and I,

it’s just what we do.

If you were here now would you make it real,

put the color in the ghost outline of the question in my mind,

smile your ever-waiting challenge, looking from me

to the child we could have made?

Better let it go. I breathe deep

but the breath is full of memory, surrounding me

with a moment treasured jewel-like my heart, when,

like the snowglobe before it shakes and shatters,

like the sunfall through the window,

like this child falling asleep with his head on his father’s shoulder,

all is still.

I bury my face in my home between your chest and your collarbone

and feel your chin on my hair, belonging there,

and your hands on my waist and mine on your back, safe and still

like the glitter settling in the snowglobe,

like sunlight untouched by shadows,

a brief infinity when we are all there is –

just me and you and you and me, summed up into a fragile peace

for one nearly-eternal breath.

Why did we leave that fragile moment when

our question and action united enough

for a peace strong enough to hold

the child we could have made? 

The sun slips suddenly behind clouds

and the shoulder yours would have warmed

is suddenly very cold

and the halo is gone from the wisping brown hair 

of the child we couldn't have made.