Love Poem to My Son

You ravage me
Suck huckleberries from my fingertips
Dip eyes like loose buttons and run away.
I sit alone at the splintered table
Watch Fountain Grass track light across your back.
What good are ladylike fingers between men?
Look at you! Cinnamon-eared and fragile,
Impervious to your father’s kisses.
Do father’s fetched from grief
Steal kisses from their sons?
Sunday morning’s pretty, pouting mouth—
I make merry just to watch you laugh.
Will you remember Old November’s
Frosted figs and rhubarb pie?
How carefully I tied your nectar bonnet?
I shall carry you like Armenia
Until my tongue lines the seashore of your mouth
Like a fisherman in knee-deep water.
Boys best raised by their father
Whispers the pescador,
Lapping guava paste from his fingers.
You smile because you are hungry.