Poem: To my sons!

By Arian Galdini

(For David and Martin)

On your collars

morning had left

one button slightly crooked,

shoulder against shoulder,

that thin line between you

where a brother is unseen,

yet holds his place.

The elder stood

like a word measured before it is spoken.

The younger had in his eyes

a door still open,

not knowing that later

even steps

learn to stop.

I had no trunk to hand down.

Only a mistake I did not hide,

a spoon washed after supper,

a bitterness

turned back

before the wood of the door

came to know the slam.

In our mouths,

“here” was not a word for show.

It stayed with the bread,

with the chair drawn nearer,

with the better bite

passing to the other

without being counted.

A moment will come

with something cold on the table,

not yours,

with no one there

but your hand.

Then

only the morning remains,

before the test.

I will be in the finger

searching for the buttonhole,

in the collar slowly straightened,

in the hand

that rests a moment above what is not yours,

then lowers

to the back of the chair

once drawn nearer to the other,

and leaves

without taking the place

that is not its own.

Arian Galdini