July is birthday month at our house. Ever since my oldest two turned one, we’ve found ourselves indulging in multiple parties. Adding Emma to the mix, six years and ten days later, didn’t slow us down.

So, today, Annie and Pearl are twenty-two years old. They’ve invited some friends over. I’m buying a cake, and bracing myself. Here’s an old poem to mark the place.

CIRCLE

In the womb’s basket
your two bodies form

a circle, a daisy chain
of babies, head up

and head down, legs nested
through your dark mirror

of the chorion.
If a circle

is life’s symbol
for completeness, for “whole,”

then our dreams find you:
a perfect pebble, sliced apple,

bubble, the moon’s toe
testing its “O”

of pond. Chosen
to adopt you, we bless

the chambered heart that calls you
into existence, the hands

that will let go,
counting our hearts’ desire

into our hands.
The doctor calls you “Baby A”

and “Baby B.”
We call you home.