Friday, August 14, 2020

Never again

The boy next to me

 eats from a bag of fast food 

without looking up 

from his phone.


I who does not exist 

now am free 

to aim my camera 

at his long curls


My thoughts simple with wonder: 

When did he become this new thing?


A little man at age 14

now precisely wears those jeans.


For years the boy says, I love you 

every time he leaves the room, ever since


the parents dropped from sight 

while he crawled like a crab 

across the sand.


Last summer I saw the man coming when

his sentences ran shorter, words flew out  


I'd never heard,  he hummed along

to Lil this and Lil that


and his hair styles grew 

more interesting.


I was not awake that first time 

he crossed the border

without me to his new life.


The shorebirds call out 

from the Bay

--more beings I cannot understand--


And I  hear a small voice, 

a distant foghorn at dusk,

 I love you grandma.




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