Couplets for an Only Son

Poem

Late at night if I’m awake too long
I steal inside his darkened room, alone,
Moved by a startling power, deep pulling need,
To see at growth, asleep, my growing seed.

I place his casual arm beneath the sheet
And feel the busy marrow where my fingers meet,
Where science says the platelets are produced,
The throbbing corpuscles stamped and then set loose.

I kneel, not for assurance against death,
But to feel the dampened molecules of his breath,
The life I witnessed blown into his lung
As it slips past his lips and sweetened tongue.

And feeling the blood within my own breast,
I reach down my hand and cover his chest.
I feel the vulnerable, insistent beat,
The heart, the blood, full-formed, complete.

Through my fingers, the message is quite plain:
I Know that Abraham was certainly insane.

Notes

 

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Print ISSN: 2837-0031
Online ISSN: 2837-004X

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