Before We Know Their Names

I wrote this for a friend whose child was in the hospital, and somehow it seems like the perfect poem for Mother's Day...

Ours

We call them to the world
before we even know their names,
before we understand
what it will mean
to lean beside their beds
on breath-thin nights.
They teach us how
to hold their hands,
shut the lights,
pray for dawn.


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(Also sharing today with One Shot Wednesday.)