You stand
at the backdoor reading
What Work Is
and want nothing
but rain
and solitude
and the scarlet
flowers falling
like flamed daggers
from the tulip trees,
when your son
comes running naked
in his striped socks
and starts to shake
his skinny ass
toward sky
and yell what sounds
like fuck
over and over fuck
which means duck,
a flock of them,
weaving trees
in fluid formation
and clanging
a sound so terrible
you think of Wagner,
the worst music
ever invented,
lifting from
the blown speakers
of your daddy’s Buick,
while he weeps
and laughs and bangs
his head against
the glass
until the grieving,
the voice of his brother,
fades inside
the fractured light
and leans into the river,
where you’ll float one
day in a funeral suit and
wait for rain to crack
the clouds
and consume your face.
So holy, a moment,
your son has stopped
to study the fear that
floods your eyes
and drapes
his hand in yours.
Says daddy come
dance for the ducks
and you do:
one step
two step
three step
—bow.
Four step
five step
—spin.
Photo by m.shattock, used and adapted under CC.
