At 38

A birthday poem for my son Jake

there once was a boy

who viewed enough and impossible

through a prism, handheld,

refracting everything into rainbow.

eyes were on him, a happiness of sorts; then,

he meets a woman, more questions than answers,  

both opening to new constellation, population three,

four if you count the dog.

he remembers the arc of his grandmother’s hand,

turning each page trembly, and with such love;   

aches as he watches his sloe-eyed daughter sink into sleep.

maybe he was born for this deepening, he thinks,

head a thrum of goofy nicknames, heart a circus tent.