Dad, says the boy
in another room,
How do you get
bad thoughts
out of your head?
The answer
I can’t hear.
*
Once his dad leaves
I snuggle with the boy.
Mom, he says,
the rainbow has touched
everywhere on earth.
*
I say, Yes.
And he says,
We think the sun
only follows us,
but it’s up there
in the sky
for everyone.
Yes.
*
And from there,
he leaps to the stars,
wonders if
we could break one,
maybe with a chisel.
I don’t know.
*
And Mom,
if Earth and a star
crashed,
would we still be here?
No. But the stuff
of our bodies comes back.
*
So you could come back
as a boy and me a girl?
Maybe.
And you could have ten armpits
and I could have none?
*
I don’t know
is the only answer
that seems true.
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
I don’t know, O
I don’t know.
*
Mom! Talking
took the bad thoughts
out of my head!
Dad was wrong.
He said,
Pour cold water
on your head.
*
In another room
the boy sleeps.
His song is at work in me,
how with curiosity
we open.
How,
I don’t know.
(Note: It turns out Finn made up the part about what his dad said, and boy did he laugh at his own joke …)