Normal Moments
 

Pools of quiet, caught up in a stitch
of knitting, the pattern of a friend's face,
how the cat loves her belly rubbed, jumps
into the funnies before I reach the last strip...
My son, as you must know our lives have become comics
turned inside out. Not a thing is quite right.
There's hardly a minute which doesn't remind us
of something concerning you:
hated broccoli, sock found behind the couch.
Perhaps you'll return to us this way,
simply an appearance which changes the cosmos,
their topsy-turvy scheme, because it's so
remarkably normal.
I say this fully aware not much is normal,
close to being Blondie & Dagwood, Hi & Lois.
We've had to involve police, enlist the media,
turn to strangers, blow up your school portrait
for bread bags, for milk cartons.
There's been no other way, not even the heart's
telepathy pinpointing you in the universe,
though it goes on trying.
"We have hope," the posters say
& sometimes I fear—
fixing dinner, tying your brother's shoe,
I fear the hope more than the not knowing,
wondering which, if either, will be the thing
to undo these moments
& cut us for all time.


c2005 Stephen Mead

"Seek" by Jennifer VanBuren