Otherhood

A hot little hand in mine
brings a sweet and wholesome joy
but it reaches for you,
the true comfort, and there it goes:
the absence of it makes me think of
my equivalents,
if you can call them that.
But what about the plants I grew from seed,
making tin foil sun reflectors in the dark months,
spritzing their tiny stems twice daily and now, in high and blurry summer,
picking their towering, fruitful rewards.
What about my books, in drawers or in the cloud,
my poems, my litany of efforts to document this life.
What about the overwhelming love I have in me,
it has somewhere to go too,
it thrives with those I hold the closest,
it drives me even on the lowest days.
A tiny smile reaches me and it brims up to feel amazing, and
it really does -
perhaps that once-removed love is just as good,
it means I can borrow it for a while,
give you some peace,
a tiny reminder of what things were like, before.