When your son abandons the lawnmower for the second time in as many days

We all want to leave this widening night,

            this barking at the thing we can’t see.

No one walks through their story un-stung.

            This yard, this life, like a book of changes,

the moment buzzing by like a prophecy,

            your body a constellation of pain.

We spend our time stumbling through the white fog,

            searching the doctrine of our own breath

when all we need do is crawl deep inside 

            the silence that comes after and face

the teeming hole in the ground, the wasp’s nest, 

            that cousin of the eyelessness of space.  

Do not fear the ache and swell my sweet boy.

            It’s easy to hate what we’re given.