When your Cadillac goes 91mph.

That’s the problem
with naming children after towns,
those ones that you put on your bucket list
but have never been to;
You’re going to have to bury them.
They will be fun and wonderful and romanticized and
they’ll die long before their time:
before their first birthday cake and third Christmas
before they stumble through the awkwardness of adolescence
even before you get to smell their wisps of hair
the supposed new born smell I’ve never experienced.
You should never have to bury your own kids,
but there they go RIP Florence
sometimes in quick succession RIP Bordeaux
and if you’re lucky RIP Hamilton
all at once.

I know that I didn’t die.
I’ve got the time to watch the clouds
to see these cities
to try and catch up with my ever growing list.
I’ve got the hours and the days and weeks
to rewrite all the verbs and nouns we were so proud of.
And one day I’ll stop naming kids
by putting pins in an oversized map.
One day I’ll meet Sade,
watch Micah eat his first birthday cake and help hang ornaments,
hold Mollie’s hand through boys and breakups,
smell Ezra’s wisps of hair.
And one day Talitha will push my boat out to sea.