Dear Son by Julie Weiss

Dear Son

I see you crouched behind a bush,
hands cupped around some countryside
bug, whose name and composition
you´ll pull out of the air as if the sky
was a library, earth´s most bizarre
curiosities housed on its shelves.
I used to fret over stings and bites.
Poison. By now, I´ve learned to trust
the knowledge hived in your mind.
I see you, sitting alone on a bench,
your bicycle flung on its side like
an argument you refused to lose.
The park is abuzz. Other eight-year-olds
wham soccer balls, somersault
off bars, play tag or play-wrestle,
but you stare at the grass, building
Lego towns inside dew drops.
Or maybe you´re mapping out
uncharted paths in maple leaf veins.
I see you on deep-read days, the way
your name doesn´t catch the sound
waves travelling to your eardrum.
I, too, know what it´s like to journey
to the center of the story, the red-hot
plot scorching any urge to return.
Sometimes, nothing temporal matters,
does it? Not your unmade bed or half-
reassembled gadget parts scattered
across the floor, not even your meal,
whose flavors have vacated the plate
like a reunion gone awry. At school,
you discover a galaxy in every lesson,
chase comets through your teacher´s
explanations. I foresee the consequences
of your cosmic-quick wit, the jokes
and jabs you´ll have to dodge,
the laughter. Corners you´ll color
in camouflage, quiet as a phasmid.
The asteroidal scars you´ll bring home.
Dear son, rise above the bullies!
Grand Marshal our town´s first bug
parade, naysayers be damned. Build
a road network rooted in leaf patterns,
a rocket ship powered by dew drops.
When time writes your story, know
that every word of it will shine.

*

Julie Weiss (she/her) is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut collection published by Kelsay Books and two chapbooks, The Jolt and Breath Ablaze: Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich, Volumes I and II, published by Bottlecap Press. Her second collection, Rooming with Elephants, is forthcoming in 2025 with Kelsay Books. “Poem Written in the Eight Seconds I Lost Sight of My Children” was selected as a 2023 finalist for Best of the Net, she won Sheila-Na-Gig´s editor´s choice award for “Cumbre Vieja,” and she was a finalist for the Saguaro Prize. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Burningword Journal, Gyroscope Review, ONE ART, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and others. She lives with her wife and children in Spain. You can find her at julieweisspoet.com