a poem

for all the eternal parents

Grip

by Alexandra Kyle

Mariah Carey sang you’ll always be my baby in my brain, as you began dabbling in full, cohesive sentences. And again

when I couldn’t snap your onesie closed.

She sang, dud-ah-duh dun. Your shirts stop at the hip now, and yet you’ll always be my baby.

Can I long for skin to skin when

you’re making friends at school? No worries if not.

My mom placed her arm around me,

hoping you could see

me and her,

as new people side-by-side.

My shoulder in her grip, she looked at you and declared,

this is my baby.

The way every mother shares one story, your dad’s mom gripped his shoulder too, looked at you with pride and said, this is my baby.

I can grip my baby, only by the grace of Polaroids. You’ll always be my baby in that tangible square. Photography was maybe invented to sooth or deepen a parent’s grief. We’ve managed to frame your fleeting plush cheeks. So I keep a stack of twelve by the bed.

Under that dozen, lives

a misplaced, aged photo of my grandma Susan.

Topless in the Aegean Sea.

She buries her shared body in a floating lounger. My lovesome

three-year-old father grips her raft

as she grips the remaining strands of his babyhood. Long before he left his babies, long before he left the planet angry and hollowed— his towering, bony limbs puppeted by suffering

at the end.

I wish I could tell them both

about you. Your latest phrases, new words!

Each word extending their story, repurposing fabric.

I grip their photo too and

slip in. Grandma and dad— holding onto each other between waves, the way I hold onto you between welcome but uninvited leaps of change. I consider

Where they could possibly be now. Desperately

praying he’s still her baby.