My son ready to hit the road |
Bowel a meal |
Today's poem is about my son and the way he talks. It's also about language and happiness, and the poetry that comes out of his mouth sometimes. My son really does use language right now the way a poet should use language--playfully, with joy.
Saint Marty captures his son's joy, hopefully
Bow Rye
My son leaves off consonants when he speaks, too busy to articulate words the way the offspring of a poet should at the age of two. My car, a raspberry jam-colored Ford, becomes, on my son's tongue, a dead dar. The milk he sucks down in his crib is his bowel a meal. At McDonald's, he eats fry anyoo. Fries and ice cream. The motorcycle across the street, a coonshawwa. When my father cuts the grass, he pushes an own kowler. If my son wants company, he orders my wife, Mumma she, until she sits beside him on the couch.
Today, after my son takes his afternoon nyeah, my brother, Un Pow, will take him for a bow rye. As the pontoon slides into the water, my son, swaddled in a sherbet preserver, will point at the dark line of teas along the shore, at the schools of small fees darting through the shallows. He'll hear the motors of other boats, mistake them for pains in the sky. And when the wind hits him in the face, the spray of the waves dampens his hair as they cruise into deep water, my son will jump, wave, scream, laugh. Speechless. Unable to say what he feels. Not knowing a word big enough.
Bow rye, anyone? |
No comments:
Post a Comment