ISSUE: Spring 1992
My son Nicholas two years and two months old
wearing a purple sweatshirt that once belonged to Hannah
Holby,
not quite awake yet from his nap,
leaning his head on my shoulder while we listen to Dylan
singing “Most of the Time” and I slow-dance around the
living room
while Jill on the sofa reading poems by Tomas Transtromer
smiles up at us and we smile back, Nick bemusedly
because the world even when sweetest is
such a full-scale onslaught of impressions
and his dad bemusedly too, feeling both lucky and old,
old enough to know now
that this moment will haunt me irreparably
in four years and in ten years and great god in twenty
whether I make a poem out of it or not,
whether even I remember it precisely or not,
haunt me with how valuable what has been valued has
been;
on the table is my baseball glove still unlost since 1962,
on the sand-colored carpet is Nick’s purple and green
football,
and Nick rests his head without hesitation on my shoulder.
In a minute Bob will be singing “What Good Am I”
and new considerations will arise,
Nick and I will put on shoes
for the half-mile walk to his mommy’s house.
wearing a purple sweatshirt that once belonged to Hannah
Holby,
not quite awake yet from his nap,
leaning his head on my shoulder while we listen to Dylan
singing “Most of the Time” and I slow-dance around the
living room
while Jill on the sofa reading poems by Tomas Transtromer
smiles up at us and we smile back, Nick bemusedly
because the world even when sweetest is
such a full-scale onslaught of impressions
and his dad bemusedly too, feeling both lucky and old,
old enough to know now
that this moment will haunt me irreparably
in four years and in ten years and great god in twenty
whether I make a poem out of it or not,
whether even I remember it precisely or not,
haunt me with how valuable what has been valued has
been;
on the table is my baseball glove still unlost since 1962,
on the sand-colored carpet is Nick’s purple and green
football,
and Nick rests his head without hesitation on my shoulder.
In a minute Bob will be singing “What Good Am I”
and new considerations will arise,
Nick and I will put on shoes
for the half-mile walk to his mommy’s house.
