falcongrrl

I'm doing NaPoeWriMo again this year, thirty poems in thirty days. I don't plan on posting all of the poems here, just random ones - and I'll put them behind a cut to avoid duplicationd/saturation/boredom. Most of them will likely be in the 'beyond first draft though not completely polished' phase.

Eight

He has no interest in reading or writing
though he'll chatter nonstop.
Monsters and marines are his heroes.
He squishes up his face to create machine-gun battles:
ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch and tt-tt-tt-tt-tt-tt-tt
in breathless call and response.
He draws pit fiends,
does ten perfect push-ups,
screams like a parrot when he laughs.

He has my smile.
And my rage.
"This is what you do,"
I tell him, veteran
of too many explosions, implosions.
"This is what you do when you feel it."
Sometimes he listens.

"You never like the things I like,"
he said once. I had no rebuttal,
just let my hand rest heavy
on his smooth shoulder.
We are who we are,
I might offer,
having already handed down
mimicry, silliness,
a mercurial intensity.
Life, some might add,
but it's a hard one
especially if I (of all people)
just can't understand him.