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117th Weekly Poetry Contest honorable mention: Holding You

by Mary Soon Lee

In the dark,
I lifted you out of sleepiness
into my arms,
school ahead of you,
but for the minute
that I carried you
down the stairs
to breakfast,
you were a larger version
of your toddler-self,
your head on my shoulder,
your limbs still floppy;
the universe so vast
that if I walked
for seven years
I wouldn't even reach the Moon,
the Sun three thousand years beyond that
and the next nearest starĀ 
eight hundred million years away,
and in that vastness of length
only I had the privilege
of holding you.

(First published in Louisiana Literature)

117th Weekly Poetry Contest