to a boy

I would have loved you
for her sake.
I would have walked with you,
arm in arm-
kissed you in the rain,
moved across the country
and laughed as you built a picket fence,
while our children-
who certainly didn't get their red hair and freckles from me-
watched Daddy hit his thumb with a hammer.
But I didn't know you then-
and someone may already have taken the job
of loving you.
And she may have liked that person-
respected and accepted that person,
perhaps in a way that I can only hope she would have-
could have accepted me.
So perhaps...
So it doesn't matter.
I didn't love you when I could have-
when I would have
for her sake.