Child of My Heart

In my dreams
(my mother-self dreams)
I dreamed you

dreamed you
  filling up
    my empty arms
dreamed us
   smiling
      loving
mother and child.

In my longing
(my mother-self longing)
I cried inside
to see young children
clutching their mothers’ hands
(my own were
   so utterly
      empty then)
and friends
all having babies
(such an easy thing to do) —

while I
waited and
waited (forever,
      it seemed)
child of my heart
for you.