I wrote this on the fly. If you don’t know, Nicole is my birthdaughter. By that I mean that I carried her and delivered her into this world, but I am not her mother. I gave her up offically when she was 3 days old, although I knew long before who her new family would be. The adoption is open. We have known each other throughout her childhood……and this is just something that came to mind when I was thinking about her…..there’s always an image…a moment that glues it all together… so…enjoy.

Curl your finger
Round
It falls short of the circumference of my thumb
Isn’t that how it always is?

She has my eyes, you know
Rain soaked trees at dusk,
It’s hue particular to my family.
And to see us walking down the street
(you won’t see it often)
You would know she rode beneath my belly button
For months
Then she screamed into 4 a.m.
And I slept a bloody sleep.

Hours later
She curled her fingers ‘round my thumb
And I understood.

She toddled into her first year
I couldn’t be her tooth fairy
Couldn’t be her Easter Bunny
But I watched as watchers do
From a distance
Safe

And when I saw her again
She curled her fingers ‘round my pinky
And smiled that grape-jelly smile

School started
Lunch boxes, and yellow buses
(she would never find that particular shade in the crayon box)
Pictures painted with colorful palms
Books, crumpled and loved, she read
My visage smiled in her hallway
And she came to know where her apple cheeks came from

Snow fell when we met again
A puffy pink glove curled ‘round my wrist
We slipped in the ice
And fell down laughing

Gray eyes, storm eyes, have melted into mahogany
You would know if you saw us walking down the street
She’s the one I gave away.