On Not Loving Your Children
       

Stop loving them at two.
August nights, when rain comes in the window
and lightning snaps the air,
don't run to them.
Or, if you must, don't look in their eyes,
the clear glass of your own fear.

If you love them at ten,
turn away from baseball, dance class,
or the riding ring. Their slim bodies
split the air like fish.

By sixteen there is no hope.
They circle farther and farther away,
whistling to friends in strange tongues,
shining in skin you don't remember
touching or bathing.

At twenty, they are gone,
the air filled with their mist.
If you love them still, turn on your back,
stare into the sun for their reflections,
swirling and leaping like burning gases,
the sea-swell, the undertow.

Tweet

Copyright © 2022 Cortney Davis All rights reserved
from Daughter
Grayson Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission