Toddle
You can tell me but I’ll never know
how you felt the moment your son
stood on his own and toddled away
from and then back to you
on the S shaped walk near porch
jalousies and a spruce’s shade
that spilled into the walk he walked
up and down. Happy, a little sad?
His mouth had sucked your nipple
his first days, then that sunny day
outside the house you rented he
stepped away. Baby’s first steps.
Your only son, his hair dark like yours
and his two older sisters’. A time
when, your marriage crumbling,
Jason Tyler followed you past pool
tables and turned a narrow corner.
In a stall in the Ladies you straddled
his lap, faster, harder. Only he
heard you moan, whimper, climaxing.
Jason, blond like your husband, like
your husband, rode a Harley. Unlike
you, he came from money, his family
Tyler Electric. Last time you two spoke
was the A&P. You put a yellow,
black Chock full o’Nuts tin in your cart,
looked up and there he was, tall in
a long dark coat, long hair straggly,
eyes red, a Sunday morning hangover.
You said, “I’m in nursing school.” And
he, “That’s great.” By the time your son
was in the first grade you were single,
a nurse, on your shift the morning
Jason spilled from his Harley on Henley
Road. He lay on the macadam lot of
Stargher’s, with its tinted glass, that sold
smoked meats. A bystander
held his hand, praying as he left her.
Your son Frank recently married.
He’s not ready for children, you said.
I wonder if anyone is ever ready.