Cycle
I must learn
to forgive my mother
now that I’m hopeless
to spare my son
-Louise Glück, “Brown Circle”
I don’t love my son
the way I thought
my mother should love me
so I handed him a shoe box
to put the dead bird in
and shut the door.
It was a mistake,
not to be sure he buried it,
not to grab the children
gathered at my back
door by their shoulders
to push them
into a half-circle
and a prayer.
Should have made them
take turns digging the hole,
each one of their pudgy hands
fingering stiff red’s box
to lower it to the ground.
It wasn’t my place
to teach other women’s
children about death,
so my own son
snuck the shoe box
into his backpack,
dead-eyed bird rolling
like a plastic prize ball,
told the principal
this cold block
of field bird
had been his pet.
See him
clutching a coffin
the size of his feet,
eyes wide over a pout,
giving a man a reason
good enough to hold him.