Air Brakes (Round 3)
Let's workshop this poem about a father's moment of reflection--worried and yet hopeful--on the complexities of parenthood and the passage of time while watching his child board a school bus
Air Brakes
Soon he will trudge up the steps of the school bus
thinking perhaps nothing of me. Still so tender,
still so tethered to my side, as he is now, though,
even when my son is mad at me or just moody
that morning, he is sure to take a window seat—
as in days of excitement waves lately dwindling—
where I can see him in profile from the doorstep.
And from under that hiding hoodie those eyes,
just barely perceptible through the tint, will cut
toward mine at the lunging hiss of the air brakes.
*This poem originally appeared in That Literary Review (2017) and then in Danny Earl Simmons’ “Poems I Admire Series” (2017)
