My Dearest Nephew

        Face swollen
pudgy fingers
even for someone so small
you were rather
Big.
Your mouth seemed to send out a cry
-Silent-
It was just a photograph.
Eyes hidden beneath mounds of newborn
flesh
and when opened were a queasy shade of
                    yellow.
So there you stayed
Under UV lights
Alone
And you came home.
And you were beautiful.
And you weren’t mine.
But a part of me was yours.

Legs stable
Crawling-stumble
taught you how to walk
to talk
Two.
You weren’t as terrible as they say
-Tantrum-
I loved you anyway.
Eyes reminiscent of my
kin
        and of your future dreams
                it seems.
      Though few words
      were spoken I
      knew…
      And you loved me
        And I loved you
          And you loved me
          And I loved you
          And you were
gone.
      But you left your hopes with me.

      Now faceless
      grown no doubt
      recalling me at times-
      perhaps?
Five.
      You are handsome…
            …shaping up quite nicely.
      A scoundrel…
      A scholar….
            -ecstatic-
              ambivalent
      Eyes.
arms-
illusion of perfection
          devastation.
Threads of thought
partially woven
pattern left undone
I run
And I see you
And you see me
But we never see again.