I
should say a prayer against his going --
instead I ask if his clothes are packed
and we walk to the car together.
He is eleven years old,
is growing plump around his middle
and has the beginnings
of a barely discernable fuzz
shading his upper lip.I study these details --
signs of what he is becoming.
I try to hold them
but they are sparrows trembling, waiting to flutter
and flit from my mind
when he has gone into that other house.
I walk by his room.
His microscope sits on the floor where he left it.
The brightly colored, plastic, army figure he begged me
to buy
is posed at attention,
the adventure suspended as if he left
only a moment ago.
At the room's center stands a hollowness
the toys, books and clutter of clothes
shape themselves around.
Because that hollow
shapelessness blooms
inside of me --
a space eaten out at my center --
please hear me.
During his days spent north
of here
in that other house where
I am not loved,
let him have gentle thoughts of me.
And when I turn around,
thinking he is behind,
and find nothing but emptiness
over bare floor,
let me stand like a lone tree
as I wait for his return--
my leaves,
my thousands of leaves
in the breeze
clapping.
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