Tonight I sit alone

unattended by friends or the sounds

of muted city streets

in August.

Tomorrow our boys will be born,

if science and God’s good grace

and my wife’s fortitude

hold out

for a little, so that they

will grow, have children or not

have children, also find love

or not,

live long or briefly and fuse

someway into generations,

a future they already bequeath

to us. 

—“Vigil,” David Yezzi: from his new book, Azores