“Another day in paradise,” my son jokes,
back from school, rooting in the cabinet for popcorn,
crackers, the last squares of my secret chocolate—
dark—I keep hidden behind the plain matzah.
Everything is eroding, I know it, even as he grows,
flourishes, has to duck his head at doorways,
giant feet scuffing the fresh painted walls. He radiates
hope to meet my fear and fury. Love like tree sap,
impossible to scrape free. Someone said children
join you to the world as long as they are in it,
kick you forward even when stillness is sometimes all you
long for. My own mother kept breathing until
minutes after I arrived in her room, then
no more waiting. Was that on purpose?
Only my mother knows, and she’s not telling.
People say all sorts of things I don’t even half believe;
questioning was the family gospel, the only traditional
rite I practice, pass on, the teenager’s
smart mouth both sting and proof.
The trouble with life is death. Or said another way,
undoing is most of what is always happening.
Viewed in this light, crackers are no less pleasing than cake,
water as good as wine. Outside the window, the desert,
xeric and bare at first glance, is a teeming city:
yarrow and fleabane in the ditches,
zigzagging lifelines you’d have to know to look for.
