KIDS
Your genes; an unseen set
of countless mannerisms, the friends
you’ll choose, the bow of your
mother’s lips, all you’ll become .
an accumulated ocean of poses
with which to hold yourself in sleep seasickness, a way with words,
reactions to a thief
.
who may or may not come
on the night you can’t drift off because
of the same sad dreams your father had .
all tightly wrapped in tiny fists
and held before the day your mouth will move,
and our music will pour forth and plenty.
KIDS 2
Parenthood was the night terror
that spoiled those times I didn’t come home.
A prospective grimy window, left unshattered,
between myself and many others. More than
once I held that vigil – forty days and awful nights
willing a drop of blood to flow, as if
I’d thrust myself into a dull lunar ritual
pre-dating even the oldest stains
on this bed we watch unseen hands and
malformed feet, we dream up names
nicked from old books. An exhalation, a fragile limb
writhes daily, there, beneath your skin.
BENJAMIN MITROFAN-NORRIS