By Shannon Armitage

The baby is on board.
He cannot disagree.
He cannot see what is hidden,
does not know a thing can hide.
He lives the miracle of loaves
and fishes. For him
there is no there or later.
So many presents
in this life. There is
no less. His parents interpret
his "here, here"
to mean "hear, hear."
He cannot object.
He has no permanent
language. A hand waving
in front of a face is both
signifier and signified:
Hello, good-bye.
Hello, good-bye.
In this way, loss
is constant. Loss
and the absence of loss.