#the guy I’m talking to actually started a poetry challenge with me 😀

[dimsilver]

Photograph

I ask him once about that coat he always wears -

holes and patches, faded elbows, dirt and grass stains

Dwarfing his thin shoulders, even in the summer heat.

He straightens, smiles a little, scrunches freckled nose.

“It’s Dad’s,” he says, “or was - before.” He stares too hard

At the cracked tiles beneath our feet. I do not ask

him to go on - I know too well the lump that rose

And choked him then, the love and grief too intermixed

To separate, the feeling that the world is just

An instrument untuned, and played quite badly, cast

Aside without a thought for little boys in coats.

But as these heavy feelings strike my heart, he smiles

Again, and squares his skinny shoulders, standing tall.

“Mom says I’ll grow into it soon. She says I look

Just like him.” Reaching then into his coat, he shows

The photo to me - laughing freckled face, the same

Tan coat, the same blue eyes. I study it. He laughs.

“Don’t I look like him now?” he asks, and in his eyes

I see the grief is mixed with pride, and courage grows.

The boy has learned his lesson better than I have -

I hear the sour notes. He hears the song that rings

Right through them, dissonance becoming harmony.

“You do,” I say. He nods. Away the photo goes.