Blue Eyes

Alex Berkley

You have blue eyes
clearly from your mother
since my eyes are brown.

And I always thought
everyone in my family
had brown eyes

until you were born
and my mom pointed out
my dad’s eyes are bright blue too.

Sometimes in the mornings
you look at me from your crib
with narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow.

You look so grumpy to be waking up
but it’s like,
kid,
it’s not even 6am

and your mama and I have
no problem with you staying
asleep for another hour.

But those blue eyes are piercing.

They remind me of my dad
in old black and white photos
from the ‘60s
when he was relatively new too.

When your eyes laugh
it is your mama’s laughter
echoing across a canyon of time.

I don’t see me yet
but I don’t need to.

You are everyone I love.

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Bridge the Distance: An Oral History of COVID-19 in Poems Copyright © 2021 by Alex Berkley is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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