the car crash in slow motion
The snake coiled to strike the child
The mother seeing bad news
In the doctor’s eyes
Some moments are so unforgettably awful
The spirit rises out
Of the body, off to one side
Hovers over the disaster
Snapping shots of all the carnage
A heart just beginning to break
Operates differently than
One far gone into the cave of grief
the last evening you were mine
Was the first time you met
Your new mommy, new daddy
Strangers then
You were delivered back to me
Sleeping I sat with you in my arms
Time folded around us
Everything paused
For our unlikely pieta
I had just enough sense
to stop everything
just to be with you
A little longer