Ella Imagined It

I

We arrive late, sleepy eyed and watching
ourselves in the
reflection of our parent's eyes. As
the intangible
we desired form, an expression
of self.

Without fail, we want skin
to register
the brush of lips and
lungs to tell sighs
to each other
on sleepless nights.

There is no desire
without a heart for sorrow,
no lust without
an object
of affection.  

No dying until
we’re born,
and no leaving
till we stayed
long enough
to know we
will miss
what we never had.

II


Ella
imagined it. Her kid with withered fingers
scratching at the door, scraggly sticks for digits,
his flimsy paper skin a mottled parchment membrane.
“It was not like this when I could have been a mother,
or younger,” she said.
During daylight hours, every other’s living is a killing
she won’t ever get.

“What I mean,” she said,
and drew a breath, “ our ghosts are never given rest.”
“We were careless as kids,” I said.

Yesterday snuck up on Ella again, left
the edges of memory a little softer, hazy
impressions of photographs, the outlines
of faces faded
into a child she could not carry
and become company
when age has turned
to silence –
- when laughter doesn’t happen
in her life
without knowing someone
who did not have it.