Pietà

He was the last to enter the small plane, 
a tall man, ducking through the narrow 
door, carrying a slight form hidden 
beneath a cotton sheet, motionless 
during the hour’s flight, not dead, 
I hoped, not yet, but sleeping, silent, 
the man too, silent, head bent, listening, 
as if waiting for someone to tell him 
why, and why, I wonder, these years 
later, I, too still hold that cradled child?