He has arrived earlier than expected,
light as a small bag of apples
in my lap. Now and then he rouses
to blink the black opals of his eyes,
still mostly sightless after all that time
in the dark. I’m his father’s father and—
oh, what the hell—I’m on a short leash,
wondering if my departure will likewise
be earlier than expected—which is,
I suppose, always the case. The future
announces itself as a quiet, insistent
tap at the door. The new being
in the crook of my arm yawns.
Now his lips part in a reflexive dream smile
I take to mean he finds the condition
of being alive curious, wryly amusing,
as if to say, So, where am I exactly?
on this bright November morning,
a day I’ve already subtracted
from the dwindling total. His eyelids flutter,
thinner than the skin of a hatchling robin.
Now I’m reminded babies must eat.
His mother whisks him out of my arms,
off to a rocker in a dark corner,
where, after a few urgent squalls, he’s quiet,
the sucking audible even from across
the room. I’m empty-handed once more,
happy in a way I’ve never been.
I plan to attend his third birthday,
already scripting, after the other kids
 have left with their frosting-smeared chins,
the conversation we might have,
the one where I tell him I held him
when he was one day old, his eyes
were exquisite blueberries, different
than the gray-green they are now.
He’ll be only mildly impressed,
more interested instead in tearing off
the paper of one last gift:
a box with a silver latch and key.
He’s wide-eyed to lift the wooden lid,
to get a glimpse of things to come.
I’m more intrigued in learning how
to tie together strings of time,
quilting swatches of months and years,
stitching my life to his, as if I had such power,
the slightest ability to forestall for even
an instant that insistent tap
from arriving sooner than expected.
Still, I’m swaddled in the glory
of the moment, thankful to have held him,
to listen to his mother hum in the dark,
to hear the creak of the rocker
on the hardwood floor.
 
                                                                                    ~Cosmo MacKenzie Harkness,
                                                                         b. November 5, 2019

 

 

Note: This poem first appeared in the inaugural issue of Lights, and online journal published by Pleasure Boat Studio press in March, 2020.