Elegy for Bennett's Baby Fat: A Poem

I was holding Bennett's little hands in mine the other day, and the realization that his pudgy wrists and fingers are thinning hit me. Hard. It won't be long until his deliciously fat little thighs officially grow into long, lanky legs. Months maybe.

The revelation made me want to bottle up this last piece of baby-ness in him and capture it in a way that later, I'll still be able to feel how his plump baby cheeks feel against my lips when I kiss him. For me, the only way to do that is in a poem:

Elegy for Bennett’s Baby Fat

The fat sausage feet I’ve snacked on

for months help you flee from my nibbles.

You say, Don’t get me and run circles

around our ottoman, dripping

baby fat from your thighs and giggles

from your mouth.  I fattened that face

with milk from my breasts, and now

it’s been swallowed up by a boy

I don’t recognize.  I scoop you up

and chomp on thinning forearms

that used to double over like rubber

bands encircled your wrists.

You say, Eat food, Mama,

and wriggle from my grasp

the same way the boy sneaks out

from the baby you used to be.