Mom, he says, what’s déjà vu?
The tone of his voice tells me
he’s worried about how I will answer.
I tell him, It’s when you think
you’ve experienced a moment before
when in fact the situation is new.
Oh, he says. Well, my friend
who’s parents are doctors
says he thinks that when
I fell off the top bunk last night
and landed on the concrete floor
I got the déjà vu. And Mom,
he’s going to be a doctor, too.
My son knits his fingers into knots
as he speaks. He looks fragile,
a bird with a broken wing.
I try hard not to laugh,
but not hard enough,
and the laughter spills
between us. You don’t have to worry,
I tell him. He is not convinced.
But Mom, he says, He told me
that was why I could fall on my head,
but it is my leg that hurts. And
he told me that’s why I might do
stupid things even if I’m really smart.
I take my son’s worry to heart. It feels familiar,
like an alley I’ve walked in before,
like a familiar room, like a voice
I have heard, like a remembered door.
My darling, I tell him, you’re fine.
And somewhere, perhaps,
in my rhinal nervous system,
a dysfunctional electric discharge
is sending a message to tell me
I’ve said this to him before.
You’re fine, I say, and unknit his hands.
Are you sure mom? he says,
knots his fingers again.
I think I’m the one with déjà vu,
I tell him. He stares hard at me,
concerned for us all.
This is wonderful. I especially love the lines from where you take your son’s worry to heart and all the way down, though the entire poem resonates with that wry kind of wisdom your parent/child poems consistently contain. This one is for the collection, For Poets Trying to be Parents 🙂 One thing: I think you want “whose” instead of “who’s” up there near the start of the poem.