Fatherhood

You were always the most cliché of boys

How gauche

Teeth like milk

Eyes like deers’

Perfect locks

Impossible to ignore

 

There I sat

A monster

Scarred immobile

Barley live

A nightmare waiting to happen

To someone like you

 

You fought mightilly

Remaining fixed

Entrenched in your position

In your mother’s womb

Until they cut you free

 

When I first saw you I knew

I had never known fear

My exhalation

A gale to you

My hands  a lion’s paws

I could swallow you

With my eye

 

How could I explain?

You were too small

For even the tiniest words

One mistake and you might

Grow up

Like me

 

How could I explain

My life

Everything I treasure

In a small

Worn

Satchel?

How could I sever

An umbilicus

That had no flesh?

 

We travel light

We move fast

Sleeping in clothes means

No wasted time

Crackers and cheese

A delight fit only for

Shabbat

 

I am no different

A wanderer

A gypsy

A dream

 

An elusive fox,

Cunning and witty

I escaped everyone

Then you – no chess player –

One move: “I am here!”

And my pretense is finished

 

I see your skin

Purple of royalty

I see my trembling peasant hands

And I know

I had never known love