Accidental Babies

Watching a family

walk inside,

husband stretching

visiting bathroom

wife holding baby

diaper-bag-on-shoulder,

and thinking

It’s obvious -

that one

was a whoops

an uh-oh we-don’t-want-to-call-it-an

“accident” for life

and PC –

“ironically” effective

of choices,

perhaps a fluke

falling into a steaming

heaping bitter-sweet

pie chart in a one-percentile

chocolate tart

or cherry or apple

slice, and why not another salty wedge

valuing one life

at an approximate average

of ONE MILLION DOLLARS

spent to raise one child -

and the questions following

this cognitive gravity -

Could it be they lucked-out-

managed-happened

to be

in love,

or at least love

one another for one moment,

bound together

by slip or failed betterjudgment,

and now bound by a definitive synthesis,

thinking ofthatwithin

a world of endless

possibilities

that it could be true,

they might, they do -

a fresh cigarette in bed,

the second-hand inhalation

of hope,

enjoyed after ostracizing these complete

strangers into a foreign

compartment hidden

in the more introverted-

though-obvious

recesses of my brain

labeled “Because

I Can’t Relate” -

maybe except for the slip,

which,

if divided into other

less introverted brainy

compartments might be labeled

“What Not To Tell Your Mother”

“Why I’m Not Ready for Babies”

and “Scary Things

I’m Certain Would

Not Turn Into

Love.”