once my babies' flesh seemed my very own,
their seahorsey bodies osmosing with my blood
but suppositions in What to Expect When Expecting,
until their souls ossified and striated and myelined enough
to move and be gasped at as in but not me,
and then marrowed and uvulaed and eyebrowed
and areolaed and toenailed and plumpened enough
to emerge to our milky marsupial days and nights,
filling and emptying in melded need and relief
(constant -- but for the odd dash alone to Shopper's). 
once my babies' round bellies were mine to raspberry
and my neck was theirs to nuzzle without asking,
snorfling all goobery and guileless until solaced enough
for another adventure across the room or yard or park,
orbiting ever further, and do it selfing ever fiercer,
and soon enough even sitting in circles with strangers
learning songs I did not hear snippets of til after work
during the epic baths before jammies and blankies
and four stories and ten kisses and two toora loora looras
or no no no the one with the angels up above tonight.
once my babies' narrow shoulders held big backpacks
captured on film from the front and side on the steps
every first day of school, as proud as punch
(til the humouring me years and the no way years):
gappy-toothed, freckle-faced and tow-headed,
off to struggle and wail and triumph and crow over
the letter g, the dog paddle, the snow plough,
the Macarena, the number 3, the monkey bars,
and the two-wheeler, me running alongside steadying
til time to let go, fingers crossed against road rash.
once my babies' cells sprouted every shut-doored night
til they were as gorgeous as gazelles and ugly as toads
with their elegant limbs, clogged braces and merciless zits,
recoiling from my touch when not simpering for a cuddle,
flirting with a hottie I have only glimpsed on Facebook,
lamenting choir's turbo-boredom from the backseat,
mastering intricacies of basketball I applaud befuddled,
escaping for a month of secret tribal joys at summer camp,
and now gone for weeks in winter too to their Dad's house,
gone to their dirty blinds and marvelous ping pong table.
