After Bill Yake
This morning the strawberries are deep red
and shiny along their crowns. As I slice them open,
sun falls bright through the window, the knife falls slow
through summer air. This house is old.
My son sleeps, turning in his bed. Once a boy
named George who lived in this house
died at 9, New Year’s Eve, 1919. Twisted willow,
hummingbirds out my window, strawberry juice
darkening my knife. When my son sleeps late, fear tugs at my core.
Now he is downstairs in Spiderman pajamas
clutching the tiny black bag I gave him for his first lost tooth.
The tooth fairy didn't come. There is storm in his eyes.
I remember now, his tooth broken from jaw last night,
how I'd washed blood from his fingers, assured him
she'd drift through the window in the flat dark.
toward his tooth's glow, while the possums prowled the trash
and the tailless racoon ambled down the ally, leaving
prints in the dust. But I fell asleep watching reality TV,
woke to chop good strawberries. Soon I will burn the pancakes.
Soon I will write an apology note in terrible fairy cursive and slip it
under his pillow with a thin bill. Truth: I have not hung a feeder
for the hummingbirds since my son was born,
still, they follow trails hidden in air to my window.
Sometimes I wonder if George was in my son's room when he went cold.
Sometimes I find dead flies stuck between the pages of books.
Sometimes when my son comes in, pockets full of stones.
I wait until he sleeps then toss them back outside like old teeth.