The Son She Never Had

 

The son she never had visits her

one night.  He’s grown, a man

with stories to tell and scars,

 big knuckles.  At the table under

yellow light, she asks what it was

like to be a son without a mother.

 “Oh, I had a mother,” he says.

The lines on his face are rivers

of her dreams.  “She just wasn’t you.”

 He takes her hand and leads her

past fact to worn brown carpet

of the “family” room.  They dance.

 She lays her head on his chest.

Above her is the ceiling where

her husband’s cigar-smoke settled.

 Later they sit in the two big chairs.

“Do me a favor,” she asks, “and walk out

the door.  I want to know

 your manner of leaving.”  He

obliges, a good son.  Silence rushes back

into the house like winter air.

 On the porch she tells herself

he would have had such knuckles

and danced with her that way.

 He would have traveled far but come back.

In a factory he would have paused some

days in machinery roar and thought of her.

circa 1989/2021