That summer I taught him the magic
of a mason jar screw lid,
how to catch them
in prayer palms first.
Six months divorced, his mother
and I spoke only through him,
words on a night breeze,
gentle, harmless.
He learned like kids do
by killing first, clapping to death
before the art of catching light.
A dozen glowed brighter
than a table lamp.
He unlearned that lesson
when words became vicious,
wasp-winged, stingers beneath the skin.
Somewhere, out there,
he lives without light, in his
mother’s basement or on
a stone pillow, the curb
of a city street between
three rivers. I’d go there,
find him, if my heart wasn’t made
of hollow glass.
***
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