Algodón

Our boy is about to turn three, has become long
and heavy, and I can no longer carry him
like a loaf of bread under my arm
on my way to hand him off to you in bed.

I remember you years ago barefoot on stage
reading poems well into the night.
Your poetry voice was nothing like your mother voice,
which is different from the voice of you.

I can catch it sometimes—the poetry, I mean.
You say Pteranodon and he repeats the word
for cotton in Spanish. Which, if you break it down,
can mean a gift of some sort, something given,

like a talent; like we say the boy has not your eyes per se,
but what’s behind them.
What’s the equivalent of a poetry voice but for one’s eyes?
Is a question he might ask some day.

Today I had to look online for an answer:
A Pteranodon is toothless and doesn’t roar.
I told him he had to pick something else to be while brushing his teeth.

I’ve come to find that the things I’m most
enthusiastic about are devastating.
Do you remember, all those years ago,
when what we wanted most was one table to eat at, another to write on? 

I’ll tell you what hasn’t changed: the voice of you
filling my ears and eyes, your feet
sticking out from under the covers. A poem, too,
is something given, handed off to a lover in bed

like a feeling carried up to a point, and after that,
it must be shared.
I remember us reading to each other,
refusing to start the day, getting up eventually,

but only to go buy bread. I look at us now,
all these years later, those eyes of yours,
what do you call their voice?
Every day, this is the something I pick to be, roaring.