You watch your boy fuse with a PC,
the boy you've picked flowers with,
the boy who now mocks you
the one you think can't be him,
the boy you sat in trees with.
And you are right, it is not him,
this boy a humbug or whatever
you call a critter that's stopped eating,
that hangs upside down from a twig,
that mutates with no aspect of
a former incarnation.
So you repel the urge to place your hand
on his shoulder, buck the wish to kiss
his cheek just one more time for
old time's sake, bury your need
to pull him back into the world
you once were bound in.
You accept that world now lives
only in your mind.
Sure, he recalls some things--
the pictures you show him serve
as proof, like the rings of a tree,
when once you lifted this boy
from his crib
and your lives felt opulent
and the boy looked so beautiful in blue.
