Sufficiently Precious

I loved you but would never have you.
I held you but could not keep you.
Your face, peering out through soft blue blankets
Seems now a brilliant flash in mothers’ time.

You were and are my own baby, my beauty.
I could do nothing then but hold you so tightly
And silently pray for a better day
When we would meet again, mother and son.

I had to give you for adoption
Now forty years have gone by
And still I cry tears of regret
That I was unmarried, young and alone but for you.

Those innocent blue eyes
Darting in my direction. So much affection
To be quashed, turned off too soon.
God, make it all a dream. Say it’s not so!

I’ll never surrender your touch, your look or the thought of you.
I see your face on those who hurry by me every day
And I imagine somehow recognizing you and
Our tearful, clutching reunion.

Yesterday I signed a form
That will allow you to call me, but only if you choose
Should you choose not to, it will be all right for
My memories and dreams are sufficiently precious
To get me by, but barely.

Story ID:	2629
Written by:	jim rambo (bio, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Poem
Location:	Wilmington Delaware USA
Year:	1967
Person:	An Unwed Mother