Ariel, Pacific NW poet

Joshua

Put flesh on these bones;
give me back my tongue, my voice.
Stop demanding silence and the end to tears.

I used to think there could be no pain as sharp
as losing a child,
not having a child,
letting go a child –
‘tis true.

Letting go of one and holding the other
so both are not lost.
How can I not blame myself,
cannot blame naivety ?
I knew what broken was.
I thought of how wolves take in young,
give them the warmth of fur and milk –
what did I know?

I thought you flesh of my flesh.
I treated you as flesh of my flesh.
I claimed you as flesh of my flesh
‘Tis true
and now I must save flesh of my flesh from you

I blame myself;
there was something as a young mother I missed
some golden key you thought silver or bronze.
You were only nine; I thought still mutable,
still able to learn, to be given the deficit;
your mother was wrong, I thought I knew better.
I thought I could save you – I knew how it felt –
a shadow of a boy wanting to be a Pan.
Perhaps someone better could have;
perhaps someone not living as a shadow themself.

I never had the right thread.

I used to think there could be no pain as sharp
as losing a child,
not having a child,
letting go a child.
‘Tis true.

Even alive, I still lost you.
“Flesh of my flesh”,
you’ve cut me deep to the bone.

Ariel