mood: melancholy

Phase One:

I got home early, today, to find you, blotchy-cheeked and hot-faced, 
cradling your head in your hands.
Though I've dwarfed you since my twelfth year, 
your piercing, blue eyes--whether mischevious, or livid, or all luminescent with baby-faced wonder,
have a way of reminding me that I am still your little boy.
Tonight, though, bloodshot and tear-stained,
your eyes--like the rest of you--
seem little more than tiny.

tiny, 

and

defeated.

Phase Two:

It was money.
I should have known that only an evil as virulent 
as the little bits of paper and metal stuffs that drive grown men to insanity,
and put mothers and their still-suckling infants on streets
could ever have broken you.
And, tenderly, with a tentiveness that belied my frantic mental rush to remember all of those times
when our roles were reversed,
I embraced your trembling body,
intertwined my searching fingers in your greying hair,
and held you.

Phase Three:

I wanted to make you forget your hurt,
so, together, we ventured into the city that birthed us both, 
in turn.
This time, I drove our rickety old car
as it wound deeper, and deeper
down roads you'd never seen before
between aisles of houses
decayed with forgottenness
spectral with memories of past greatness
re-claimed with old bits and pieces and odds and ends
that were supposed to be garbage
and your fretfulness slowly turned to awe,
my concern to pride
to be a child of this broken, beautiful city.

Phase Four:

You're not getting any greener,
and time stops for no maid(en).
When I say it, now, somehow, 
the words catch in my throat
or even earlier--
like my chest
and I know that, one day,
I will be 
alone.

So I grasp your hand, as you
(with eyes that glint, in your upturned face)
place one delicate foot
in front of the other
(step 
    by 
      step
crossing 
         over
building 
          bridges
meet
       me
          halfway)
marking a trail
through the unsullied snow,
and I'm thinking about how
I'll never really stop being
your little boy
and about how wonderful it is
to be able to marvel
at this strange
garbage
healing my city
like how we're healing our
selves,
just the 
two 
of us,
together.

Phase Five:

Remember when
I was small,
and Dad and I lived together
on Annott Street
and we would spend the whole entire day together
doing nothing
and riding the peoplemover?
I wanted, somehow, 
to fill you with that same wide-eyed wonder
that I once burst with.
So we left the car just north of Grand Circus Park
and walked the two blocks through the winter-perfect wonderland
bedecked with christmas lights 
and 'tis the season bells
and i showed you how to slip the quarters into the slot,
wait behind the yellow line, 
step aboard, 
and to always stand at the front of the car
so that you could see out of the tiny, smudged window
and not miss a single view
from high above the twinkling city.

 Phase Six:

We walked together,
still hand-in-hand
along the riverwalk,
climbed the molded-tier lookout
and stared, 
glass-eyed,
musing over some new-found certainty
for which we, somehow, didn't need to find words,
and I barely even shivered
as the icy-breathed gust 
hobbled its way across the river
and wove narrow, clutching fingers through the fibers of my sweatshirt
to clutch at my bare skin, beneath.
And, carefully picking our way down,
I made sure you went first
so that I could lock my legs in their kneecaps,
brace my stance,
tighten my grip,
and hold you 
the way you once held me
and anchor you
to safety.

Phase Seven:

We boarded the peoplemover again,
at Fort/Cass Station,
and decided to stop, once more, at Cyprus Taverna,
for dinner.

The proprieter, gentalmanly and warm, claps me on the shoulder
and takes your hand.
Like a faithful, discerning dog, I stiffen at his advance,
but relax, when I see his cordial style.
My eyes follow him as long as he nears us,
my defenses held in check, but still fully activated.

We eat the flaming cheese, soaked in ornamental brandy,
that glows pumpkin-orange, and illuminates our rosy cheeks, 
and we gaze fondly through the flames, into one another's eyes.

"Walking in the Air" is playing--
an eloquent piano solo that leaves our souls hanging
in our mouths
and reminiscing together,
promising each other (ourselves)
not to ever forget 

this moment.

Phase Eight: 

Past salivation-triggering bakeries
and expensive jewlery shops, 
we wind our way back to the peoplemover
and ride to the end of its circuit 
and, talking together,
still holding hands,
we make our way back to the car
window smashed in,
dark,
with glass strewn all about the seats and floor
and paul's camera
one of a few remaining mememtos
of a past exisistence
and my only prayer of proving
the beauty of my home
and my mother

is missing.