Big brother

I love this poem from The Mother in Me. I posted it a few years ago and just ran across it again.

Big Brother
by Darlene Young

Propped,
bottom wedged firmly in the corner of the couch,
he sits with a blanket-wrapped bundle
posed precariously across his arms.
Mommy has so carefully coached him
he dare not move.
Muscles frozen lest he drop her precious package.

Mommy is home now
and she calls him her big boy
but he is still so small

so small

except his eyes large staring into the camera, caught
deer-like in oncoming headlights--
this tiny, squalling, sucking thing
in his arms, large as the future,

large as his world.