Seeing Babies

by Ann Neuser Lederer

This one has flopped its tired body
across my chest      I caress
Its damp curls      Its hot cheek

That one      In the corner
Stands silent      Looking

I cannot move my own eyes away
from the direction of its glance

Last night the room filled with them
Rolling and cuffing each other
    I would not be irritated
I could not tell them      Quiet! It is night!
I chatted along with them

Into the dim I tracked their laser sparks
    The dribble of their bubble wands
    Their red haired darting
    Their babbling glitter
Now they seem to have bounced away

But still I hear one thinly whimper
Oh      I say to my daughter
Do you hear that baby crying?
It's just a kitten's meow      She says

This poem previously appeared in the chapbook, The Undifferentiated (Pudding House, 2003).

Ann Neuser Lederer is the mother of a 23-year-old son. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Moria, CrossConnect, Kalliope, Adirondack Review, Brevity, Comstock Review and others. Two chapbooks of her work, Approaching Freeze, (Foothills) and The Undifferentiated, (Pudding House) were released in 2003. She has been employed as a hospice visiting nurse for several years.