Whispers from Billy and Samuel

I walked outside with you this evening. Into the dark, damp grass beneath my feet, grainy stone.
Cool air whistling into my lungs, inflating, ribs lifting, heart contracting.
Moon ponderous in the sky, waiting for introductions to be made.

Even here, in the dull British suburbs.
No pear tree or dark roses.
The Moon waits for a small child with wide eyes.

But I have no year-old child to carry out. Not in any world.
Only a weary thirty three year old body, tattered, to raise a blood shot eye aloft to your fat expectant whiteness.

My arms are full of imaginings, gathered to myself.
The soft, sweet heft of a child never-to-be.
The phantom weight settles comfortably into nerve endings, the old habit of making solid flesh from  air, the repetition of yearning that has altered their branchings and signals.

I wish that you could see her, old Moon.
I have carried her outdoors to be introduced, the nothingness of air shaped into limbs and lolling head.
My daughter, never in need of a tattered blanket.
Neediness is not in her nature.

You look blankly at a woman turning nothing into her shoulder.
No introduction necessary.
This is already familiar.

But, just briefly, I look through the eyes that might have been yours.
My daughter, tiny creature, with a mouth that never made any small cries.
Just whistled breaths.

Your eyes.
Wide.
Borrowed by your mother, to look at the Moon anew.
To make my cries seem small.
And I twirl about, clumsily, drunk with light and wishes.

***

whispers from here and here