The House of Orion

No cherubic curls on his inside face,
he's all sugar in his shoes;
no interventionist god could keep him
from circling every ellipse that called to his sky.

He sees me, yells my name as he runs straight to me.
Jumps up and hugs me, and I lift him right up, never to disappoint
holding court in his path.
Spin him round his universe a few decent fold,
follow him down the hall and kick an accidentally laid
pirate ship that clocks my foot in its walk.

He fumbles and tries to offer me a seat
at his table.  It's covered in boy's things,
straight arrows shooting,
toys and apparatus and parts to unknown wholes...
he lifts up a small, wooden folding chair for me.
I don't really fit, but I sit down anyway.

We are colouring in the lines, near enough
and he makes sure to tell me that
I can use any colour I like.  Just make the
hero's hair yellow like his.  It's turned to
golden brown now, his curls frayed
and more like windblown fields of a wave,
commanding him to sail the seas, bite
the breezes and fight each and every roadblock.
He already knows what it is to be a man.

When he is denied, or angered or frustrated,
he sticks up his little fists, round and over-exaggerated
like a boxer in an antiquated era. 
"Ding-ding-ding" he yells, and sounds the bell
ready to fight, win and conquer.
In the same breath, he ushers into character-
A baby, a cat, a horse, all three.
Crawl around, and run at me:
wants my attention every four and half minutes,
at the least.

Invites me to the train museum,
near the place where I grew up, away from the city.
The feeling of that past forces me into the age I am,
and all that has been gained, lost and recombined
between then and now.  He reads this in my eyes-
and I say yes, as we dance
and he stops to kiss my hand, and then continues.

When it's time to leave, my coat already on, he
jumps onto the bed, and says "no no no...
you Can't leave" and wraps his arms tightly
his grip around my neck.  He's getting stronger,
and knows it, but still like a little child curls
his legs around me, the core of his boyhood
working from inside me now. 

He knows I will be his, the golden light
warming from beneath the unseen portion
of the sunset drowning in all his colours of blue,
stone encapsulated at the front of his pirate ship
I remain;
there to catch his wild dogs, and turn them into
stars fixed safely in his sky.

He knows this too, as he smiles into me,
kisses my cheeks and remains,
not releasing with his grip.
I must promise to come on his trip
and I do.  I hug him hard,
and manage to release his ever growing
arms from my neck.

Later that night, I sit, and still feel that
force,
not letting go.  God help me
if I ever have a son like him. 
There is comfort in that feeling,
not leaving me. 

~ M. Lucia