all downhill from there

They arrived by
leaving
the only home
they knew, a dark
paradise
without hunger,
without want,
without fear.
This very space
not only shrank but
squeezed,
pressed,
expelled,
ejected them
through a bath
of blood and water,
into a world of
harsh light,
brutal noise,
haunting hunger,
endless need.
Years later we
will fret over
a swat on the rear,
a scraped knee
the wrong soccer coach.
As if we had some
power to shield,
as if the bubble
ever stays intact,
as if the trauma
doesn't start with birth.

stranger son

I loved a boy
with an easy smile,
an eager heart,
an aim to please.
For seven years
I knew his face,
and he knew mine -
we were the same,
or so it seemed.

I lost that boy,
I don't know where,
or how, I only
know he's gone.
He's here, but not
the boy I loved,
and now my work
is just to love
another

(him).

He wears the face
of the boy I loved,
the easy boy,
and I forget --

Oh, let me not forget!

To love this boy
with the grimace face,
the angry fist,
the fearful heart:
we're still the same,
beloved, still.