— Abandoned Mine, February, 2022

https://www.abandonedmine.org/wrens-and-rents-michael-bickford

 

A child, our little wren

and we the ‘rents

and then another

and now they are children

offered to each other from our selves

held and released breaths

let out and taken in like old genes,

a hem on a hand-me-down

 

growing as they do

like mushrooms after rain

unnoticed but for absence

how big they have become

rounder fuller

louder stronger

the tenor and texture of their voices

your voice and mine

and theirs their own from others

never heard by us as we let them go

sending them out on the lead

of our words and our love

 

yet there they are in you

in the mirror, on the screen

and in my dreams more real

than when we are together

now that we no longer stare

incredulous and smitten as we were

 

so we study each other

for their features

each of them in us and both in each

my mother’s eyes and mine

your father’s mouth and yours

 

their scents once so sweet and shared

a burst of blue bouquet

now a glancing waft in greeting

don’t smell me daddy she had said

their touch so cliché-soft,

a baby’s derriere, their hair

untousled now, apart within

their social lives

       their I’s

their very beings

offered to the world

to their lovers and their friends

   and sometimes

in these our fullest moments

to the ‘rents.