what child is this

I understand a little better this year,

when the air is thick with phlegm

and desperation, the impulse to look up

and ask for a miracle.

Urgent case in California,

begins the email from the adoption agency.

A woman due two days before Christmas.

I picture us racing up the coast

guided by starlight

playing the song our son danced to 

last December, parents packed

shoulder to shoulder in the auditorium.

He'll nod along and then he'll nod off. 

His eyes look more like his birthmom's 

when he's sleepy. We'll talk giddily

about TV shows, high on gas station coffee.

None of this comes true. 

Like the Christmas story, it has been tainted 

by the teller. The woman chooses 

different parents for her baby.

Photo by Magnus Östberg on Unsplash

This year our son is obsessed

with his Christmas list: night vision

goggles, L.O.L. dolls, a plastic waffle maker.

He has discovered the power of wishing

but not, yet, its limitations,

which lurk at the edge of the frame.

When he rages and plunges his fists

into every pocket of his advent calendar

I suspect that he suspects

how desire can propel and destroy:

a rocket, a supernova, some sublime deity

not meant to be looked at straight on.

And so we will point our longing

toward quieter things, no less miraculous:

our cat's safe return moments after

two coyotes paw silently across the street

stillness that dims the blue light of screens

immune systems that rally and bend

to meet new intruders

a trough that softens and becomes a bed.