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.
