Tim Frank ~ Who is My Baby Boy?

He jumps and sings
with hos­pi­tal alarm
and then leans on my shoul­der
as he begs me
to wipe away his tears.

He tries to mouth
the word, pur­ple,
then points to the sun,
as if he wants to prowl
to the end of the rainbow.

He wrecks
the TV, the lights, and pho­tos
of life
before and after,
then lugs coal from the fire
into his room to think
of ele­phants and electricity.

He floats on blan­kets
of dirt and despair—
can I describe him as vicious
and lonely?

What will hap­pen
when he real­ly gets hurt
by an exca­va­tor truck,
build­ing his brave new world?

Maybe there’s a school
in the desert
that’ll teach me
what his sali­vat­ing smile
real­ly means.

And even when he strings sen­tences
togeth­er
like a prophet,
or unlocks the mem­o­ries
of his youth
from the taste of apple juice,
I’ll nev­er know him
or the dreams that he’s bathed in,
like a car sink­ing
into a bot­tom­less, pre­his­toric lake.