Touching

at school is against the rules,

so when a spike-haired

first grader in need

butts up against your hip,

don’t you wrap your arms

round his skinny bones, don’t you

cup his skull in your palms,

smooth a knuckle up his baby cheek:

he’s got lice, he’s got AIDS;

you kiss him, you die,

or worse: late nights, he’ll hunch up small,

stare into some laugh show

and whisper what no half-pissed dad

cares to hear from his wife’s

kid at the end of a long day

of nothing, when sleep

is the only country,

anywhere else, terror:

a father you’ve marked

before, slouching into parent night,

two hands trembling

along his thighs like birds

shot down,

black eyes wary as a bull’s:

he blinks at the butcher,

you smile, you fold

your unheld hands;

what roils in his wake is the one

you won’t teach

to beg an answer from love.

[from How the Crimes Happened, by Dawn Potter (CavanKerry Press, 2010)]