no rest

my son, he jumps off his bike

that his legs and arms are still too small to master

and he bounds across the road

I'll just run instead!

he battle-cries and

gallops uproad toward siblings

his abandonment is a

retreat, a falling-back

from a relentless gravity

that has pulled him, since birth, away

and up an incline

toward something that is not me

on this day,

i love the bike-tossing

for its rebellion against what I hate

this giving-up fills me

with a joy

for a child's world of non-betrayals

a place where he (therefore i)

can do what pleases him (yes, i);

free of the stone-throwers

i love the boy

for giving up just

this one time

and how he comes back

downroad at me smiling

and dodges an imaginary whatever

bounding into a ditch

tumbling head-over;

his body tossing dirt and sand

at rest he scares me

the way a stopped sun

would blow up my heart

he needs to be at-speed

for when he does find rest

he will be gone from me fast