Poem: "After Science Project"

In the middle of the living room,

a styrofoam ball –
a mimicry of the brazen earth –
spins near the phone;

as an odd recent memory of how we

had cut it in two,
suffered through tantrums and fights

angry, red as a tomato and
sad as a grey pigeon, ambling about

and in the kitchen while I chat with
Lora, worn,

he comes poking through,

reminding me again that
he is going to walk me to my car,

this angry and sad child,
this taciturn and fickle boy,

demanding intimacy

And on the pavement by the car
he tiptoes

like a giraffe
eating fodder

on a tree
and concomitantly,

pajamas cotton, hair recently washed,

he kisses me;
But his lips brush past my cheek
as we go through the ritual

and I intuit his disappointment
and when he turns to go

I mention it,

‘Did you wanna give me a kiss?’

And he says ‘yes,’
relieved,

the gravity of his pressures still a load on the small of his back,
sloughing off in degrees –

so

he

kisses me on the cheek

again

this time

like my dad used to do,
except,

now I have the hairy face,
and his smooth,

but I don’t think he cares,
like I didn’t care

spinning spheres spilling out into the suburban streets,
emptying out into the wet charcoal of the sky