SON

There's a picture in my head:

a garrulous, gap-toothed grin

emerging from the surf sun-blond,

all gangly angles.

Inheritor of my bony string-bean frame,

you’re older now.

I’m picking your tomatoes,

pardoning the insolence,

anticipating the pleasure of losing at chess

for the first time.

Punk baby,

tremulous then at climbing frames,

will you recall the anthems

I once sang you to sleep with?

v.2000