The Project - Day 26

Boy at Three

It seems impossible, this dangling foot
below my knees.

The increasing weight is so incremental it can almost be denied,
but that body, long and gangling,
draped over me like a lightly snoring rug
will not be refuted.

This is childhood.
This is running and jumping and stories
and lies and fighting and telling tales.
No tell-tale soft smell of milk,
but dirt and rubber and twine create
this weighty thing I hold,
this baby gone.

My imprint, still so small, it cannot grow,
the fraction of birth
consumed by this new self.
The small curved space of an arm, a kiss, a fragment of lullaby,
feeds and fades,
a cotyledon of spirit.