35

Birthdays are a difficult thing to celebrate

When they might not come again.

The future extrudes into the present,

Obscuring the past,

Turning joys to impediments

And making this poem a challenge to write.

I am grateful for your voice,

For the particular color of your irises,

For the children that woke us this morning,

For the whisper of your touch;

Grateful for the ways you’ve softened me,

Sharpened me,

Shown me wounds and been their balm.

Yet enumerating your goodness

Feels like listing coming griefs,

So I am not dwelling so much on that.

Instead, I find myself reflecting

On your coming birth day,

The first’s inversion,

When reconstituted fingers

Part the earth’s cold womb,

Incandescent life squints our eyes

As they blearily regard a world made young,

And the wheel of mortality completes its turning.

Perhaps we will mark that date, now shared,

With candles, lusty singing, and champagne

Until its memory fades

Into unblemished aeons.

For now, I rest my hand on your belly

To feel the rhythm of your sleep.

I bite my lip until I taste this dying blood

And whisper in your ear,

“Resurgem.”