You two look so happy in this photo
next to the phone in my kitchen,
with a tiny me on Father’s lap,
positively delighted by this
new person you had made.

Did you coo over me and tickle
my toes? Did you play peek-a-boo?
Did you swaddle and coddle
and sing to me and later
my little sister?

The mother we knew was
not a coddler. You said that
I cried and cried, pained by
colic, that I was fussy and
difficult to soothe, that Father
was better at calming me,
holding me close to his chest,
perhaps because he was warmer.

How often did you leave us
to cry it out alone in the crib?
“You can’t pick them up all
the time,” you said. “You can’t
let the baby be in charge.”

And I see the ghost of my
hand hover over the phone,
ready to dial the number
that was yours for 59 years
to ask, “Why not?”

You can’t spoil a baby with
too much love. My sister proved
that years later with her babies.
The task is to help that little one
carrying your DNA become
comfortable as an old soul
inside a new body.

Tell her how smart and capable
and thoughtful she will be—
as your second daughter did
with her daughter, as that
now-grownup daughter does
with her baby daughter.

“You are an independent woman,”
she says to her seven-month-old,
who grins at her mama.

What your two daughters
would have given, when you still
had words, to hear you say,
“I was so happy to have you girls,
delighted to watch you grow
into the women you’ve become.”

Do you hear the phone ringing,
Mom and Dad? Pick up, please,
each of you on an extension.
Let us hear you say, in voices
that ring inside us still,

“Hello, girls. We’ve been
hoping you’d call.”