Boy
by Laura Sobbott Ross

Some day he will stop blowing kisses back—
buoyant affirmations snagged mid-air
and his small splayed fingers closing.
He will not recall
the baby skin, tiny and fragrant,
through which he stretched into childhood—
his skinned knees, his buckets of sand,
the dark web of his name
first penciled between frail blue margins.
For now I will peel back layers
that fall into spirals of apple skins
too thick for missing baby teeth;
and whisper a mother’s incantations
over scabs and ghosts and fevers,
soothed away in a darkened room
with a yellow sailboat nightlight.
Weren’t moons and rocking chairs
meant for mothers…
In the morning I know
that he will already let my hand go,
before I can catch him with a kiss
at the top of the hill when the bell rings,
and he hopes the other kids aren’t watching,
as they wander into the doors of the day,
their seasons of construction paper and paste,
bright and fleeting in the window panes.

And through my own window
I see a yellow bus
waiting for a boy who runs back to kiss
his mother goodbye again.
Goodbye again,
he tells her, goodbye,
until she disentangles his sticky grasp
from around her neck and watches
his bright colors fly over the silvered lawn—
each damp outline imprinting its memory
into the quiet earth of her skin.

(for my son)