Thirty-One Is Perfect Timing

With fair warning
By my lover and friend
Of the mechanical replication
Of your official announcement
Your approaching return
To again impinge on
My life.

Before I returned your call
Many intense moments
In our bonded lives
Streamed through me
Sending bolts of emotions
Packets of sharp memories.

Standing before the large framed glass
View of your tiny swaddled self
I became, in a microsecond,
Complete love from the core
Of my soul
A love beyond measure and time.

Unaware of time and surroundings
I must have stood there for a long time
Because the attending nurses began
To giggle as they watched me
I left, I didn’t want
To call attention to our intimacy.

Other times were too painful too long
To think about.

I wondered, if we were to meet again,
Would your presence be surrounded
In smoke
A camouflage
For yor silent suffering.

The message on the machine
Sounded youthful (your Mom I thought).

Your voice on the line
What now

When I spotted your lean
Sharp face
I embraced you
Attempting warmth and acceptance

A distraction,
This stranger next to you
Wrinkled smiling face
Hints of hard life
Was staring at me

In half seconds
She looked familiar
Like your grandmother.

I walked around
Effecting a casual affect
And greeted your mom with
A smile and a handshake
And it all began.

Your Laurlee of four years
Hand and arm in yours
Said you had changed
These past few years
That you wanted to see
Your father often.

I said I would have
Waited ‘til you were sixty-five
So 31 is perfect timing.

Jim Desson © 2004 All rights reserved