poem

 Anger Stone

The counselor assigned my son

The task of drawing what he was

Feeling on a rounded gray stone

My boy filled it with indecipherable

Orange etchings like an ancient Aztec relic

I tried to translate his glyphs

Into a rune that unlocked

The loving gentleness of his heart

I held it to my ear like a shell

And could hear the ghostly 

Groans of my stern thwarted grandpa

It smelled like the emptiness

Of my dad’s old closet 

I placed it against the tip of my tongue

Only to taste hints of the hard

Feast that could be the rest of my life 

I held it close before my eyes

Hoping to find the faint outline

Of the shape my son will 

Someday sculpt it into, 

As soon as he learns to cut

I’d do anything to help him

But all my strongest teeth

Have already been cracked  

9/27/22