ELEGY FOR THE UNADOPTED

I was resting
on the flowered couch

after work.
You were there, too,

nursing someone else's baby.
We heard a noise

like the sky emptying
black baseballs

from its pockets.
We thought about

hiding the baby
in the basement.

Remember?

Or in the field
behind the house

among the mournful eyes
of meat cows.

It's so long ago now,
but the birds at the feeder

still talk about it,
how night scratched

at the door and I let it in
rather than go searching

for some matches and a candle.



© Howie Good

Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of nine poetry chapbooks, including most recently, Visiting the Dead (2009), from Flutter Press. His new book is available at: http://www.amazon.com/Lovesick-Howie-Good/dp/0978904168/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252190216&sr=8-1