fatherhood

Ghostly glimmerings
halo this highest moment.

While I cradle him eagerly,
smiling with absolute certainty,

a future portentous persists
in torturous anonymity.

And perhaps that is why
I cling to him more than he me,

fearful of the inevitable time
to come when wisely he

anchored in a now unknown
describes a photo to his love,

“Oh, that was my father.”
And her heart will smile on him.

“What was he like?” she will ask.
He’ll pause and grimace.

Not that it’s his fault, really,
just that ghosts are so much harder to know.

When my sweet boy Cooper was born. (Aug 2016)

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