A baby boy

 

A baby boy

I dreamed about you more than once

while we were still teenagers:

Once you gave birth to a baby boy

and I delivered him.

 

We were on a street atop a mountain

and no one stepped in to help us;

people were everywhere

in their yards and gardens

milling in the streets

even washing cars.

 

I won’t tell anyone why you were having a child

that is our secret

a secret I have never told even you.

 

The baby arrived and I reached in for him;

He looked me right in the eyes and smiled

and the moment he did

the sun light broke over the trees

and lit first his thin hair and then his forehead

and then his eyes

and that smile woke me up

in a hotel room in London, England-

I was 18 and you were far, far away.

 

I have seen you several times in the long years

since we no longer have seen one another;

You have a way of appearing as the sun comes down

in that late August way

almost rising at dusk

through crickets and mist

and tall gloaming grass.

 

This is a once-a-year thing

just between us

-just between me

as I hold it close to my chest.

 

That child is now a man.

-Jeremy Nathan Marks

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