The night before he turns eleven
the boy cannot sleep. He is so alive.
He jumps on his bed and makes up songs
and can’t stop telling me how much
he loves me. Every day he becomes
more his own, which is to say less mine.
There was a time I heard every word
that he said. There was a time I could hold
his entire body in a single arm. But I was never
able to make everything okay with a kiss
or a song, no matter how much I wanted to.
What a perfect rehearsal for now when
his heart is already practicing how to break
at the cruelness of boys and the spite of girls
and the burn of wanting something you can’t have.
Still, I hold him, knowing it won’t make things all better,
hold him through the ache when he lets me.
And tonight I delight with him in his jumping
and singing until it is time for quiet.
The boy cannot sleep. He buzzes above his sheets.
His life is somehow too much for his body.
He can’t contain it all, despite that his legs
are so long, his reach so wide. And this love
I have for him, so much bigger now than it was
when he was smaller, how can that be? Walking out
the bedroom door, I feel a surge of love leaping out
of my chest, leaking from my eyes.
I don’t even try to hold it in.