Starling, clipped-wing darling, left heart-half too
large, right too stifled, lungs so stunted you
would never fly, never breathe a bladder
full with stolen air—your rumors started:
with no toes, the women whispered at the
party’s corners. Your slack body, other
Theo, haunts my child’s symmetry, your
names overlapped with the prefix for God.
I saw your mother at the market, asked
when she was due. I said, “Well, then they
won’t be in the same class at school.” She looked
stricken, but I hadn’t heard about your
body, your brain hemispheres each their own
wrong size, and was worried my son would be
Theo B. “He’s a whole year older,” I
explained, but I’d already hurt her whom
I wouldn’t mind standing by in the park
as we both called “Theo” and you both stayed
put, your confusion, or your plausible
deniability, to gain just one
more second motherless. My son’s hair would
lift on the breeze; he’d say, “I think that’s me.”