Unwrapped - waiting to bear

Can you remember way back, when you first began?

How she bore you proudly, brought you into the light of a land

a world away from this damp place.

In the streaming sun, through the steaming rain,

she bore you, wrapped tight, her precious burden.

Just so, you bore me, surrounded by surgical white,

rubber and steel, this country's batik, it's cold wood.

Pounding pavement, city smart, you bore me -

an infant queen, chubby hands granting regal grace.

And so, as then, now I, always in your wake,

still precious, perhaps, but burden lifted.

In my turn I wait, back bared, waiting to bear my own precious bundle.

Body enclosed, so many layers, but missing the wrapper

and so, exposed, here, with nothing to hold.

Bearing his name, your face, her words.

I hold fast to these, to all that has been borne in my name,

that we must bear because of this face,

that has been encountered and recounted through these words.

Unbearable, the weight of this waiting to bear my own.