Messages
The porch light shining on my bedroom ceiling
means my son isn’t home yet and the clock
glows an hour I used to rock him in my arms
with the stealth of a woven web.
Mom I need some advice, he texts.
Should I date someone new?
His ex-boyfriend still holds him too closely.
I encourage him to go for it. Ask him
what he’s afraid of. His version of afraid
is different from mine.
In the morning I listen to true crime,
walk straight into the dark woods. Going from sun
to shade creates an optical portal,
and I approach seeking its message.
The oval frame of hemlock needles glitters green.
A bug lands on my arm. A spider works its web.
The sun slants, spotlights the silken
cable — a highway between the living and the dead —
a tree with ferns growing out of its upturned
roots. My eyes adjust and I hear messages in mycelia,
secrets the woods don’t know are secrets.
Every busy thing, shadowed or spotlit. A son
who embraces the night the way a bat navigates
the spaces between hazards. Who used to
be so close to the floor he could rest his head
on the cat, his stuffed gorilla, his friend, anything
he loved that he could show his love to. I was the
milk, the kindness, the snug hip. He was piloting
black sky — a ship, newborn and polished as wet stone.