Reprise
Your small weight presses against my breast
You nuzzle me, make small contented sounds
A wisp of breath touches my skin like a blessing
The center of my being pulls
and remembers, remembers it all,
the gentle touch, the fear of breaking something
and yet, and yet
Some forty years divide me from that time
my womb was drawn and plucked
I nurtured my son’s new life
How can this fragile skeleton in its fur envelope
awake those memories of yearning and of youth?
Lari Smith