Keeping The Fate

In my arms for the first time,

the flesh scooped from the machine,

tubes swept aside,

Nurse Chris benignly ghosts

and you must hear my earliest words:

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses

I learned them by heart down

Greenpoint Avenue

earliest this summer

or late last,

I still saw some children

on a stoop in Blissville

playing with a bucket

and thought

yes that's what children will do.

You've been out riding fences for so long now

Yes, says Kevin, we're old to be parents

and I wasn't even aware I was "riding fences"

avoiding my fate and yours, I suppose,

because yes,

at home I'm trying The Long and Winding Road

and 

lead me to your door

tears wet your forehead

I'm sorry, so sorry

it's just 

I remember back at the nicu

where there are no saints or martyrs

literally only the purest light I think I've ever seen 

just these

incredible chimeras of life and death

and how, juggling protocol, ever shifting

as the widening and narrowing eyes

and vital signs -

I looked at you and thought

I know you, I've always known you

and married to

our fate is sealed

and will anything ever seem the 

same again,

now I know this,

it was, a lot, and,

I think, still is.