Song for a Child

I've almost known death

and have been in love.

I've played with both

and thought myself brave.

I've pictured marriage,

to be with another.

In the hermit's cage,

my soul's grown poor.

I've been to the glacier,

I've been to the desert,

I've known the impure,

I've seen behind art.

But imagining you,

my mind's at a loss—

for how might it feel,

the love between us?

Rebecca Parson's poetry has appeared in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Birmingham Poetry Review, The Montreal Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, and elsewhere. A finalist for the Southwest Review's Morton Marr Poetry Prize, she is also a recipient of scholarships and awards from the Sewanee Writers' Conference, the Academy of American Poets, and the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Johns Hopkins University.