‘Wrens and ‘Rents

               — Abandoned Mine, February, 2022

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
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.