Sometimes I can almost see him,
skinny legs, a striped shirt,
his black hair tucked under a baseball cap.
He’s running in the backyard
with the other kids—my son—
chasing chickens, throwing a ball
against the fence.
Only he is not my son.
He’s the one I was expecting that season
my belly grew taut as a honeydew,
who would take his first steps, in summer,
on the dry grass behind the house.
Not the one who lay on a pile of pillows,
scanning the ceiling for years
with his big, dark eyes, as we bent
to spoon puréed food into his mouth.
And now, even though he’s dead,
his mirror other lives on—
a phantom outline
always at the edges of my vision.
And because he, too, is my child,
I want to love him,
but I can’t bear to see him
lengthening each season,
oblivious to me—his mother—
and to his brother
scattered in the wind.
Danusha Laméris’ first book, The Moons of August (Autumn House, 2014), was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press poetry prize. Some of her writing has been published in The Best American Poetry, The New York Times, The American Poetry Review, The Gettysburg Review, Ploughshares, and Orion. She’s the author of Bonfire Opera, (University of Pittsburgh Press, Pitt Poetry Series, 2020), and the recipient of the 2020 Lucille Clifton Legacy Award. Danusha teaches poetry independently, and was the 2018-2020 Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, California. www.danushalameris.com
Photo by Anne Ruthmann on Foter.com / CC BY-NC