Cameroon letter #11 - Baby Luc

How could anyone ever stop holding you,

Before cleft palate repair

squishy, soft, sleepy, sweet, snuggly boy?

I would keep you forever asleep on my chest

or goyo’d along the wavecrest of my back

and feel your breathing, birdlike heartbeat,

melted-soft heaviness all against me.

Slightly but oh so rightly 

too warm, too familiar, too close,

the way you’ve simply melded to me –

to the curve of my spine,

to the arch of my neck,

to every eager place inside my heart

that it seems you have claimed for this moment as home.       

oh the way this child holds you

How could anyone ever give up holding you,

cradled in arms and nestled to back

and all through their heart?

You are sticky and snuffly

and sometimes you’re heavy, but

not from the weight of your body against me – no

the heaviness comes each time I remember

that soon we’ll remove your IV and NG

and check suture lines and say, “today’s the day

you can go to the family waiting at home.”

perking up

Then the weight of your squishy self, sutured cleft, snotty nose,

suctioning, tube feeds, Metro and Kephlex,

sad cries till midnight or till someone sees

your wide-open eyes, carries you to the desk

to watch charting and med recs till you sleep again –

then the weight of all these will be gone. 

The heaviness comes,

squishy, sweet, snuggly, soft, sleepy, boy that I borrow,

from knowing and hoping and praying despite

every part of my heart that you’ve melded into

that soon you won’t be here to hold

and your world won’t contain me; you’ll never recall

that I held you and let you belong here and thought

how anyone ever could love you enough

to stop holding you close and to let you go home.

ready to go home