May 14, 2020
Dear L,
A punch in the stomach,
that’s how my morning started
or ended, depending on how
you mark time and distance.
My son’s fist the place
where I begin or end.
Our bodies strange clocks
whose hands have stopped
working. And isn’t that
the question now, L?
Is today the 59th morning
since the start of such mornings
or another sunrise closer
to their ending? My mother
is looking for vacation rentals.
I need something to look
forward to, she says, or I’ll go crazy.
Choknus’. How our language
already fits choke inside
of madness. The expression
to go crazy and to clink glasses,
one and the same. Cheers,
to health and madness, L.
I’ll admit I’ve been drinking
a lot lately, so much that any cup
warrants my son to ask,
is that alco-hole. In France,
preschoolers play in chalk
boxes spaced more than
six-feet apart. My son
would never keep
such distance. At bedtime,
he asked I read, My Schoolday,
a torn, hand-me-down board book,
we haven’t touched in years,
with flimsy cardboard
clock-hands he can move
with his own: 7 AM wake-up,
8 breakfast, 9 school bus, then
the rest of the day in a building
that’s not our house
with teachers and friends
he can only dream about
or wave at from a distance.
I’d rather read him fairytales
where children get lost in the woods
or fall down wells or end up inside
of ovens. I’d rather he have
stories, even the scary ones,
the certainty that they end.
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