Summer Lightning 

Deep In the day’s shadows

my blue-eyed boy dawdles

where dreams and stars blend

in glorious paradox.

Here, in his sea-soft space

galleons dip and rise

on the swell of an edgeless ocean.

Oh darling boy, time is so fast

and childhood such a skittish thing.

One day you will throw it out

like busted shoes

as you wake and smell the elegance

the algorithms

inside life’s iron cage.

And will you fly, I wonder?

Or will you sing?

The angels present at your birth

were rather coy, if I recall.

Nudged by the moon’s slow spin

you rise from your rocking boat

and I adopt a stolid air

as if my love for you

were rather ordinary.

How difficult it is, at times,

to bear the shock of summer lightning

arcing between our ribs.

When you are stubbled and long-boned

and I am kicking air –

unwrap this poem

on a bellrung Sunday during rain,

feel the beat of my devotion

pounding in the slack of its creases.