Mathis Sings "Maria"

and
two
lovers
boiling
in
youth
touch
tongues
between
fire
escape
rails
and
yearn
for
some
where
as
two
stars
cross
above
the
moon
grieving
in
the
west
side
sky.

from Home Fire

50th Summer, 1998

My year old son can’t wait any longer
to walk so he waddles across our lawn
like an intoxicated penguin, giggling
with the freedom of not needing

my hand and I feel such hesitant joy
watching him in this late summer sun
stumble toward all he’s never known
on his own without me. Yesterday

a man shot two police, fathers
both, for no reason other than murder
and I ponder the world beyond our home
infected with violence in search of a target

and I shiver that my walking boy
assumes each stranger is just one more
person waiting to kiss him and love
his untamed hair, red as the ripe apples

that scent the air of my fiftieth summer.
But what lessons should I let happen
to my only child whose sneakered feet
lift like pistons in a tuned engine and make

me wish I could be his father and fifty
without the apprehension those years
have taught me. Someday he’ll think
my caution is a clamp around his life

but now all he wants is to hurry across
our yard to the new sliding board
where I keep him at the top until
he pries my fingers loose to zigzag

all the way down. Then he staggers,
fists raised like Rocky, a self-propelling
champ in a diaper, headed now where
he needs to be. Something in his eyes

insists I get out of his way and let him go.