The child walks within our lives
Self-conscious in church
Anxious to do right
Seen but not heard
Such a good handsome boy | such a nice pretty girl
no speech, no sign
Kneeling in a pew
And also with you
Unable to mount the faceless, hold-less granite cliff between
earth and heaven above

The child sits shushed on a shelf
Lonely as the sun
Quiet as a scar
Brittle as porcelain
Painful to the touch
Inconvenient feet
leaving sand and in the entryway and dirt on the carpet
We are deaf and numb to their presence
Until that good kid fetches us down
and down and down and down
​into a bone gray depression 
A tangle-haired doll in a cave
in need of simple company