I wish, I wish

This song was in my head all night. Since this summer really. I love it because the lyrics are so strange and minimal, leaving so much to interpretation, but the longing, the sadness is undeniable.

I wish, I wish my baby was born. Under my breath, the first words speak the collective mind in layers, circles. Rick's mom, wanting her baby boy to be better, pacing a little in the hall, telling her sister what to ask the doctors, because she just cannot talk to doctors. They are too much science, not enough human. K, his first love, rubbing aloe lotion into his arms, wanting her baby back- to go ice skating, to go dancing, to go singing silly eighties songs with in parked cars overlooking the city, to just chill, holy. Me, wanting the best friend who so satisfied my maternal needs by letting me feed him after the bar when he looked so small in his necktie. Mary, mother of God, walking under the solstice moon in the light of the North Star, carrying the weight of her baby about to be born into any safe place, any safe place at all: hospital, church, manger. Give us our boy.

It's true I wrote you as the Christ in my trinity poems, but it didn't mean anything. No prophecies. No martyrs. Magi, maybe. Me, you, and Ryan- smoking on my roof last winter- staring at the stars- the way one looked painfully stabbed and stuck in space by the Cathedral of Learning's highest tower. It made me sad. I was always sad. You pretended to pluck it out of the sky and stuck it to my cheek, making me smile. Later, in the mirror, there was a small speck of glitter there. How did you do it?

How did you improve so much in one week? Smiling already. But only on command or when we mention Mikey the Pants, go figure. Mikey the Pants, notorious gutter punk rebel- who hopped trains with an open wound for weeks until he walked in to the emergency room with a maggot living in his toe. Everybody knows the story. The doctors said it was disgusting, but that little guy probably saved his life, eating away the infection. I asked him if he saved it. Gave it a name? Kept it until it became a fly and lived for its one day existence. He never answered.

No, I'm not no saint, no I never shall be. The nurse brings in a string of beads and says, "Here is his Rosary. It was hanging on the wall in his other room." She steps into the light. "Oh my! Wait!" She stammers and fingers the shiny beads until she figures it out. "Oh my, these are skulls!" I try not to laugh. She shakes her head and throws it on the table. I hang it up. Your mother asks where you got it. I tell her, "New Orleans." She shakes her head. She laughs. "Oh, Rick." I laugh with her and feel so in love with your constant surprises.

Like the time you stole those expensive wheels in thirty seconds flat. Last Halloween. I brought a snobby bike messenger as my date to the party. He bragged in the kitchen about how expensive his new wheels were. Specially designed so no one could ever steal them. One thousand dollars. You took a drag of your cigarette and said, "bullshit," and disappeared. The Bike Messenger walked out to leave and saw his bike wobbling in the small space between houses where he had hidden it. He ran over and there you were, carrying his two fancy new wheels, one under each arm, smiling under the street lamp. He wanted to fight you. You told him to bring it, but a line of beautiful women formed instantly in front of you, blocking any chance he had of hurting our favorite face.

The Bike Messenger said, "I'm leaving," and since he was my date, I had to go with him. He was angry the whole way home. "I can't believe the little fucker got them off so fast," he said and a few houses later, "Damn." It was all he could say. He was stumped. "Damn." He wanted me to be angry at you and I pretended I was, but I couldn't stop laughing. This pissed him off more. I sent him home and rode my bike back to the party and tackled you with a big hug, you little asshole. You adorable little asshole. So glad you're on my side.

I wish, I wish my baby was born.

Christmas Eve and Liberty Avenue is cold and barren, save for an ambulance swirling past in panic sounds, lights, and gone. Steam from grates. Exhaust from warming cars. And you, poor girl, dead and gone. Something is gone forever. Inside of me. My grandmother. My innocence? I'm not sure. I mourn for it, unsure what it is and where to bury it. I hold myself against the cold and know that this isn't the last hardship or the last hospital. This is life. I keep breathing because I believe life is beautiful, always, even when it hurts. There is so much still on the horizon, even for us. I will take your bookbag out of the closet where I have been storing it under a dreamcatcher, keeping it safe while keeping it out of view, because I couldn't bare to see it. I will keep it ready for you right where you left it.

A drunk man with long hair like Santa stumbles off a side street and passes me on his way home. I want so badly to see you coming around the corner, smoking so coolly, carrying your saw so you can stop and play a song for me. M said she heard you playing your harmonica sadly on the streets a few nights before your accident. She leaned out of her window just as some fat Italian lady screamed at you from above, telling you to shut up in a thick accent. M said you walked off and she called to you, but you couldn't hear her. So cool. You must hate us seeing you like this. But that's ok- we don't always get what we want and we have to learn to be weak and trusting. The time will come to us all, often more than once. I wipe the dead skin from your lips with the wet cloth the nurse gave me and you pucker them so sweetly I laugh. It's like I am putting lipstick on you. I laugh again, this time with a tear- baby, my baby, that is something we have done before. When we dressed in drag for kicks. Do they know, these nurses, how many people we have been? Born and born again and reborn so many times. You bought me a summer dress from the thrift store. Only guy to ever buy me a dress. Every time I think of you I feel pretty.

I wish, I wish,I sing it to myself on the way home from the hospital. Just what would a body do if he could, if she could? Lift himself right out of bed, take up his bed and walk away- to where his sister wants him, she says, right now- please God at least let him be home by next Christmas, coming in late at night to go straight to the fridge. Let him wake me up with his stinky feet creaking the stairs until he's sitting next to me, asking me about my day.

What would his lover do if she could, her hands move like honey over his brittle skin. She soothes his brow until he's asleep. Every time he lifts his legs or yawns, she giggles and it's so sweet. I watch her and love him more for loving girls who are so wonderful, so gifted and good. She stands with her beautiful mother who is whispering softly into his ear, telling him to imagine the beach, the sand, swimming with sting rays. His heart beat slows to a good, relaxed pace. The nurses thank them for the Christmas cookies and tea. They combine their magical sweetness to make the room feel festive for us. It feels good, like Christmas used to when we were little.

His lover asks him to lift his eyebrows and he does. It's so adorable. So him. She has him do it over and over again and we all laugh and tell him we love him. She soothes him and he goes to sleep.

I walk home and wonder up at the sky- the solstice, the darkest night is over. The wise men were star-watchers. Ancient science, like love. Love, the medicine. The need for it in the world. He was coming back to be born- they just knew it. They didn't need proof. They walked so far to see him.