The Stevenson Memorial

She was never meant to murmur
glad tidings of life into Mary’s ear;

neither line up, stamped, impassive,
one of a gross of gold-colored look-alikes
pincushioned in a thin display
at the check-out

destined to guard your car
or glint from the shoulder of the WalMart clerk.

Nor was she popped from a mold in China, product of some wide-eyed kid’s attempt to supplement family income,
wrapped in an AirPak and

flown

over the earth

so another wide-eyed kid could wire her,
fish-hook fashion,
onto the real tree Dad and Uncle cut down.

It is not in her to
smile
a wavy dot-tipped line
from a handpainted wooden plaque for sale on eBay
whose maker’s friends say
is adorable.

Holding one knee,
she balances

in a place we bury more deeply
than a risky flirt at work

on a stone headboard
in the intimate spot
that lovers don’t touch—

the lightless retreat we all have but
don’t speak:

the wound that gushed,
ebbed to a saline trickle,
laved to a
permanent
basalt
ache.

She waits.
I’ll hold my son again.