Borrowing Children

Posed in our best waxy smiles
other people's babies on our laps
we stroked the impossibly soft skin of
fat legs and the little plastic cross
on his baptism socks.
Peacock proud parents looked on through lenses
their details lost to the tidal wave
of toys and baby gadgets.

The boy is done, oil imposed
peachy head soaked
by an old priest who grated words
‘the father, the son’ through a cancerous larynx
and gave us tactile symbols.
I heard my own story in the lectionary
saw our faces in the font.

I hope there’s another way to mix
our blood, the palette of eye colour,
to marry our faces in a creature
that would not take over our lives so completely.
I want you for myself.