“Soon”

every time she said, “soon”

it meant either “we will see””,

or “never”

the first Schrodinger moment

of each child

“But”

every time she said “but”

all the words of love that preceded it

were washed away

like a sandcastle dissolved with the cadence of the tides

“Maybe”

every time she said, “maybe”

my hopes awakened:

to the fragility of butterfly wings/the darting path of hummingbirds,/ the smoke from a chimney on a clear winter’s night

manifested

for just one wind-blown second

“When”

every time she said the words, “remember when?”

they invoked a moment shared,

a dance, delicate and precious,

or hard and cruel

revived

from the primeval amber

where such nuggets are deposited

like an ancient flower