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Wrens and ‘Rents
Michael Bickford

A child, our little wren,
and we the ‘rents
and then another
and now they are children
offered to each other from our selves
held and released breaths
let out and taken in like old genes
a hem on a hand-me-down

growing as they do
like mushrooms after rain
unnoticed but for absence
how big they have become
rounder fuller
louder stronger
the tenor and texture of their voices

your voice and mine
and theirs their own from others
never heard by us as we let them go
sending them out on the lead
of our words and our love

yet there they are in you
in the mirror, on the screen
and in my dreams more real
than when we are together
now that we no longer stare
incredulous and smitten as we were
so we study each other
for their features
each of them in us and both in each
my mother’s eyes and mine
your father’s mouth and yours

their scents once so sweet and shared
a burst of blue bouquet
now a glancing waft in greeting
don’t smell me daddy she had said

their touch so cliche-soft
a baby’s derrier their hair
untousled now apart within
their social lives
their I’s
their very beings
offered to the world
to their lovers and their friends
and sometimes
in these our fullest moments
to the ‘rents.

—
Michael Bickford writes poetry, fiction, and memoir with the Lost Cost Writers’ Cooperative in FarNorCal on the Redwood Coast of Humboldt County, CA. His work has appeared in Toyon, Five Gill Shark Review, North Coast Journal, and Pittsburgh Quarterly.

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