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