Outbound

The people stare up mildly. They do not know pity or fear. The lidless attention of the sun relaxes their individual feathers of self-importance. Their necks soften and their looks grow morose. 

O God, O Watchmaker, looking at your billion beings on your waxworks world....My son is asking, "Can you see them yet? I think I can see some." 

Middle-aging on my way to the airport to see you leave and myself remain, I buy up all the outbound trinkets and chauffeur them emptily home. Why can I hear a mechanical choir repeating Te Deum from the wallsockets? Flies philippic against the glass, breaking the light. Anything to escape, even as cripples. This room is bugged. White walls, white walls, a splash of carpeting and a few overstuffed chairs floating here and there. 

Am I still on one side of the chain-link waving goodbye, goodbye?" I am half-mad with too much half-happiness. Blackbirds twitter in our ice-shadowed portico. Released from your mother's love for one summer's lapse with your broken-down dad. All summer, the sun rocketed from day to day, a blinking fireball, each day a blink. We stumbled through the piratical adventures of Treasure Island together on the cascading backsteps. The lapping grass was ocean-blue, for us. With your maximal mother's hysterical shove and influence at its all-time ebb, you ferried the football of my fatherhood from down to down. There were no strangers or others to sub-divide our laughter; one hand on your eye, the other uplifted to brandish a glittering air-sword, you tittered your English cockney and threatened the dog and myself with the plank. You walked the yellow lever of the see-saw and balanced on its slippery fulcrum for an eternity; one eye under your hand, one hand in the air.... 

We stare at each other in the car. 

At the end of summer like the end of a pier, I step outside and stand next to a tree that stands next to me. Leafy, alone, looking up into the brightening evening air.