The last time I lift you,

I’ll have no idea.

I won’t know it’s come or gone,

I won’t know that at last is now until it’s history:

the period at the end of another chapter of you and me.

Or will it be a moment like a guillotine? 

Finality, at last.

Or will it be an ending like a fractal, 

paradoxically, 

at last,

at last,

at last.

You will have asked to be held like so many times before;

maybe you’ll just be tired or weak from too much sun;

maybe we’ll have just run in from a storm—

or out into the rain—

maybe you’ll just want to feel as small and safe and comforted as you were when you were a baby,

mine,

again,

once more,

at last. 

Your arms will reach upward and your eyes will seek mine;

your toes will stretch and your heels will rise; 

you’ll bounce, wanting lifted. 

I’ve lifted you, held you, carried you so many times before, 

how could I know,

how can I know that this last time is it, 

at last—

how will I know there won’t be anymore?  

Maybe I’ll hold you a second or two only to realize how heavy you’ve grown

and how weak from life I’ve become,

and I’ll set you down after little more than an instant;

that will be that,

at last. 

Maybe I’ll raise you high into the sky, aloft by the armpits,

twirling and spinning and smiling and laughing and safe and wild and free,

but maybe, still, it will be too brief;  

I will get dizzy and you’ll feign for my relief; 

you'll ask for release;

I’ll set you down unsteadily on your own ten toes,

maybe on the sand at the beach?

Maybe on a sidewalk or in the snow or atop soft, clean sheets?

Just down, please;  

that will be the last time I rocket you right off your feet.

At last, maybe you’ll ask, and I’ll tell you I can’t.

At last, You’re too big now, I’ll say,

or Not now, or Really, again? 

At last, without ever touching you, I’ll ground you forever,

and you just won’t ask again because you’ve witnessed me wither,

because you believe I can no longer deliver,

at last,

at last,

at last.

Maybe I’ll never know when the last time will be:

where I’ll lift you,

that I’ll hold you,

when I’ll carry you, finally,

at last.

Is it tomorrow? Tomorrow is too fast.

Was it yesterday? Please, not the past.

Will it be soon or far-flung history?

Will you remember? 

Will you know?

How will you feel?

Will the feeling even feel real?

I don’t want to believe that this isn’t now and won’t be a mystery.

That what once felt impossible is now, and always was, an inevitability.

Closer than farther to what’s sooner than later for both you and me.

I don’t want to think when the last time will be that you’ll call them mumbrellas so confidently,

or when you’ll make your final request for French Pies without irony,

or when I’ll last hear you say I’m swooshing the swipers when it rains torrentially, 

or when you will, at last, refer to me as Dada, finally—

though I know each moment and more is destined for you, 

and for me,

at last.

What then can I do but lift you as often as I can,

hold you as much as you’ll allow,

and carry you until I can no longer bear it? 

At last, 

at long last,

finally, I’ll ask:

When was the last?

Maybe, just maybe, you’ll answer in a flash:

At last has yet to come to pass;

so why not now?

Before the present is past?

How about never? I’ll say and,

with the power and immutability of the universe’s gravitational mass, 

I’ll lift you, once more, at last.

Never is now; together, we grasp, 

now or never, at last.

Now, at last.

Now: at last.