Poetry: From Nothing, There Was You

I can recall those lost, lonely nights,

before you were born.

I thought about nothing.

Dumb things.

And I watched TV without much thought.


I can think about life before your arrival,

but I haven’t really any sense of what that was.

I always told your mother that you were an angel,

and I fished you out of Heaven.


Because the truth is,

I needed you here.

Not to impart trauma.

Not to make you angry.

Not to hate somebody smaller than myself.

I had enough of that before you were born.


You made me braver, wiser, less stupid.

I can think, and it is clearer.

There aren’t dumb things and smart things.

It’s all smart now, with your clarity.

It all has purpose.


Before I reeled you in from Heaven,

I had nothing to my name.

Except for the shame of somebody else’s failure.

I had their trauma. I had their pain.

But your eyes, and your hands, and your little toes–

It all let go.


Now even when I stay up late and watch TV,

(you like to ask: why do you stay up so late sometimes?)

I think about you, and your mother, and your sister.

And our future.

Because we have one,

and as I try to wash away my trauma,

pain that I caused in ignorance and guilt,

I think of you, and your eyes, and your hands–

and your little toes.

Everything lets go.