the father

promises are made, between fathers and sons
as the womb grows closed, ear pressed to heart
waiting for the tides of birth, the clamor and newness
shuffling strangers move across the shifts of day
bringing and awakening, crowding flowers cut in prime
promises

here where the torrents move incautiously, troubled
by the anguish felt beyond the wall, curiously gray
strangely green, permeable to foreign wails of losers
in this game, of life's shortcomings, its bitter reprisals
permeable to safety, to loss, to all things a father
would defend to a son

he makes his mantra, does this man, drawing little
mystical protections, muttering small spells, small
bargains for a pact to give him life, this sleeping son
a raw father stricken with some new clarity, subject
to a new unwritten code that unfolds with light's speed
and binding

he endures this wait, near blasphemous as eternity
seized and blocked as minutes toll, sluggish bites of time
and dictates his promises, to the passers, to the angels
to the demons, who may remember all his sins
that he gives himself, like men have ever done
for love