latch, part ii

the door is nothing,
the latch a make-believer;
fear is a cold ghost

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primul fiu, luna mea

the best thing, really,
is to live in someone else's
hours,

which is often quite easy
for this man to do when
it comes to his children.

i tinker with their
clocks a bit,
play in their minutes

like some threshing
child too bored to
remain inside.

it snowed today here,
son, and the schools
canceled their classes

and i lay inside of
a kind of warm imposture,
thinking about time.

how i've a lover who
lingered along a longitude
of upper hope and lower despair.

how i've a lover who
spoke her truth into the
ears of a denying child.

how i've a lover who
carried me across the threshold
from passion to friendship.

and i am ok with this,
good with where i am at,
primul fiu, luna mea.

but that is my life,
and need not seep into
yours. it shouldn't work that way.

you know very little
of any of that part of
my extant journey,

any more than i truly know
many of the moments that
brought you to your station.

i was not there, except as
a spectator looking through
a long glass made of the

particles of hope and joy,
frank expectation, and
prayerful reverence.

well...i was there, of course,
inside the cells of that
beating soul-heart,

the muscle of your
prairie spirit and
mountainous vigor.

you've done so well,
primul fiu, luna mea,
you've climbed out of

youth with the resolve
of gravity and the
balance of goodness.

you have astounded
and astonished me,
you have migrated.

you have sculpted with
delicate pupils a masterpiece
of impossible marble.

you have drawn a greater
horizon and marked it with
vitality and ferocity.

you have demolished the
tombs of fear and in their place
erected great, airy halls.

but that is past, and all history is sold
to time the way things
are bartered between enemies.

which is to say,
the way of the was
dwells in bad scriptures,

and the way of the
soon-to-be plays in
the ether of hope.

so i am most interested
in where you will be
after tomorrow's tomorrow.

to reside in your every second,
awash. to linger in your
minutes, quieted.

to await your return
with stories about
the hours,

primul fiu, luna mea,
so that i can know
you even better.

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