The Kid


He’s like charcoal ready to smudge or snap,
brittle as a day old chicken’s wishbone,
I wear him as a charm, a feathered cap,
I know I am to him his first whetstone
still smooth and hard as the day he was born.
I do not let him out of my sight yet.
He has a rugged edge like an acorn
cup from a Black Oak, grows his own secret
world of growing up, where I glow dim,
become moth-like and more solitary.
I forgot my own mother just like him,
as I got older, made my history.
The reflection in the window is mine,
he stares straight through such a simple outline.