Apology to My Children
  By Cynthia West

Today I’m answering for all the caring
    I never gave. While I weeded the garden
    your young voices called for my arms.

My doors didn’t know how to close.
    All those visitors sat in your chairs talking
    over your small voices. I served them

platefuls of enchiladas, beans and corn.
    In the kitchen garlanded with chiles,
    the coffee was always warming

on the stove. Downstairs, in the basement
    beneath my smile, I longed to hold you,
    but I’d never learned how.

Today, I’m answering by pouring you
    all you ever wanted. I call you,
    stare into your sad grey eyes, only to find

they are cold moons risen far beyond
    our small hill. Long ago you gave up
    sitting by the dahlias out front, waiting

for me to take your hand.
    Why did I, who never arrived for you,
    suppose you would never leave?

You’ve moved away, further than if
    you’d hid, farther than my voice
    can reach. Calling up your ladders,

I’m gathering everything I wish
    had happened, offering it to the absence
    where you once stood.