Adoption

I stitched us together by night 

in the rocking chair, marveled 

at your fingers, the foreign navel, 

memorized the sweep of your eyebrows,
unraveled your language. 

Having accepted the unfamiliar,

I kept watch
for proof of our union. 

Tonight I inhale as I kiss 

your perfect face, moist 

from busy dreaming. Your fragrance 

marks me-that fingerprint
only a parent can read. 

I crawl in beside you, grateful 

and patient, to dip us 

with even breath
in this night's ink.

-- Alison Kolodinsky, American/Canadian poet and translator, from Poetry magazine, June 1992

Image: Katie Page of Colorado, who discovered that the baby girl she was getting ready to adopt was also the biological sister of her newly adopted son,