new lens
I hold him and, looking down, I often think I’m looking in my younger sister’s eyes as a baby, and in my own eyes as a baby, and at my brother’s mouth when he made certain expressions, and at my older sister’s face shape a long time ago — I can’t know if he’ll look like any of us when he grows up, but I see flickers of all of us in him. He really is mine. And he also looks like Rosie fifteen years ago, that seriousness in her forehead and the shape of her lips. I see Steve in him, too, in dozens of ways, but what shocks me is when I see my siblings, so far away but in my house at last.
I think we have the cutest baby, Rosie said. Does everyone think that?
I suppose everyone does, and that they’re all right. We can’t help it, it’s the hormones, we’re hooked. And too, I’ve been looking at a lot of baby pictures lately and they all look pretty similar. Our physical eccentricities come out later. For now, this baby is cute in the way that all babies are cute.
Oh okay and also look at that tender forehead, those invisible eyebrows, his perfect mouth, those perfectly chubby cheeks. Look at that sweet countenance, earnest eyes, how he folds his hands as he eats, and look at that reddish hair. Ack, I’m a goner. Because I look at him, he looks like the most beautiful creature, then I photograph him and the photograph often doesn’t capture that. He’ll look cute in the picture, but he won’t glow like I see. It’s my eyes, these newfangled mama eyes, they now see perfectly.
