The child says there should be more—
More candy, more kittens, more stories
At bedtime, more bedtimes, more.
More brothers and sisters. The child says
We have to go back to the store.
The store has everything—well, not quite.
The child says this isn’t right.
The child asks for another store in the middle of the night.
The child wants more breaths. More.
The children arrived before. Is this why
My child says, “more?”
We have to go back to the store.
We don’t have money. We need more.
We need more—to buy things at the store.
We hate these things. We don’t want any more.
Yes we do. We want more money for more.
We need to keep swimming to the store.
The child was right to want more.
To want more love. To implore.
To work more, so we have more.
Write more poems. Poems don’t belong in the store.
Yes they do. Even poems.
And we will buy more.
If we lose one, there will be more;
Another mother, another father.
Another child, waking from a dream in the store.
This is the answer to grief: More.
Please, one more poem.
More love. More sunset and song.
How did you convince yourself the child
Who chooses more is wrong?
You ask the child: you are choosing what?
The very act of choosing is what we dare to choose.
The will. The will. The will.
But the will to be nothing matters, too.
Are you choosing the child?
Or is the child choosing you?
What does it matter?
Did you choose yourself? Was it your choice?
Look at the way you wrap your legs around yourself
When you read your public protest poems.
Your arms folded around yourself. Your voice.
You say to the child who wants more,
I’m in control here. This is not your choice.
We can’t have more. Not more—which depends on narrow belief.
Listen to my voice.
My voice. My older voice, filled with grief.