Expecting my daughter to come in
late, I slept lightly, attentive
to the slightest sound.
Imagine my surprise when my son,
dead four years, came into my room
and spoke soft in my ear
to let me know he was home.
I hugged him so long. Wondered
aloud why I hadn’t been expecting him.
Let him know his sister had
taken over their old room. Together,
we sorted through his old art projects,
old shirts, old shoes. When his sister
came home we hugged her, too,
and played chase, leaping over the bed,
the chairs, laughing, squealing, alive.
Soon, I was floating—zagging
through the air with wild delight—
not because I was trying to fly, more
like I was a leaf lifted by wind, soaring
with no effort of my own. I chased them
this way, through the dream to the day,
and our laughter was then and now
and somehow inside me forever.