Drew

birthday words for my beautiful nephew who can't speak them.

despite what old wives said

me and my kid sister

counted our chickens

while pregnant.

in our projection

best friendship a given,

my blue-eyed micah on the heels of her brown-eyed drew.

at twenty months

drew could say dinosaur;

at twenty-two months,

dinosaur, only less often

before dinosaur vanished altogether,

leaving him to watch and rewind

disney’s lion king where mufasa falls off the cliff

like lighting a fuse.

but wait,

this is a happy poem.

drew’s groundhog’s day birth

a worn bill murray inside joke,

only there’s no loop to getting right

what already is.

dinosaur nothing,

mr. soul-on-his-face,

our sweet daily primer;

thanks to you, our family is

fluent in love.