Judith Collins McCormick

The baby monitor inches from my hand,
I sit at my desk sorting pictures of your first six
months
and listen to your loud,
then softer,
then finally relinquished objections
to my insistence that you take your morning nap now.
Your smiles and expressions of wonder at various toys and people
look back at me, and yet
as I listen to your plaintive cries,
I see your face as I know it looks this minute: scrunched into wrinkles,
mouth stretched round, tears trickling
from eyes that would not recognize
the smiles they offered to the camera.