Baby Facing the Wrong Way at the County Jail

A woman enters the waiting room
carrying a baby strapped into a car seat.
She sets him down so he is facing me.
Tucked under a heavy blanket, all I can see
is the round disc of his face.
Behind his pacifier, the edges of his mouth
flicker. I know he’s smiling because of the pleats
around his eyes. I smile back and he smiles bigger.
He’s a happy baby. How old is he? 
I ask the woman who is reading a magazine
and seems to have forgotten 
the baby at my feet. She looks up and I watch 
her mind chew through my question. 
Seven months maybe. Or eight, she says
then adds, He isn’t my baby.
So, whose baby are you? I wonder.
I work for the state. I bring him here
to visit his father, the woman says
as the baby continues to smile
at the metal detector, the linoleum,
the folding chairs, the fluorescent lights shining 
on everything ugly in that room.