among the things we cannot show our children

are the wings

we wore before they were born,

snatched away in a moment’s grace, replaced by others

of different shape and shade

we cannot show them the face

that used to look back from the mirror’s surface

every day, until one fateful day

when it became somebody else

the hands that shaped the world around us, the thoughts

that shaped ourselves

gone

between this moment and that

what can only be talked about, never known

is the death of one person when the mother is born