by Gary Young
It’s a joy to be subtracted from the world. Holding my son’s naked body against my own, all I feel is what he is. I cannot feel my own skin. I cannot feel myself touching him, but I can recognize his hair, the heft of his body, his warmth, his weight. I cannot measure my own being, my subtle boundaries, but I know my son’s arms, the drape of his legs, smooth and warm in a shape I can measure. I have become such a fine thing, the resting-place for a body I can know.
+ + +
My son stepped between two mirrors positioned to reveal an endless train of reflections stretching to infinity. When he looked at the string of his reflections left and right, I expected him to laugh, but he said, come home, all you children, come home.
(Both from Pleasure: Poems
