I wonder if Job ever looked at the other children,

The ones born after the bet was over,

And thought, with all the love in his heart,

“I wouldn’t trade you, but I want the ones I had.”

Did they know, when he lifted them onto his shoulders,

How their weight was the weight of the others lost,

How their laughter filled him with pain-laced joy?

Perhaps he never cracked

And the memory of his departed ones was confined

To portraits on the wall or mementos in a box under the bed.

But I just wonder, having known immeasurable loss,

If Job was human

How could he ever stop wishing for the arms of the dead

Whenever he held the hands of the living?