The Fish

On Tuesdays my son cooks. Today he made spam musubi and ikura sushi from the salmon he caught this weekend. I cooked, too; the fish. The sun passed the block before dinner was ready, but we put on jackets and ate on the stoop anyway. A blanket, place settings, cloth napkins on the concrete

Sometimes I wonder what poems my son will write when he is older. Will he remember me, how I refused to call my ex to ask him how long to broil this thing. How he covered the seaweed with eggs and said I’m so so sorry if this doesn’t work out, and how we both agreed to just try our best. How it was not the prettiest dinner, but it was ours, and like everything else in our perfect memory it was kind of a mess

What moments does he catalog, what does he collect, label? We have this new ritual where we spend 30 minutes a night doing whatever we want, anything that’s not chores or work or homework, and we do it together. It was his idea. He calls it Peace Time.

Sometimes we draw, sometimes we read. We don’t always have time. Last week I canceled — twice. I’m doing my best. Tonight after the stoop picnic we had one of our listening parties. I hope he remembers those. We cuddle up on the big rug and take turns playing our favorite songs for each other.

The music pours into the house. It is the softest sea. We’re floating on our backs, my arm is a tide, pulling him in. He’s sucking on his baby blanket even though I told him not to. I pretend not to notice. He’s skimming the beat with his knee. I forget that I’m drawing z’s in his hair. There is no absence here, no upstream to swim. We have already made the journey home

His heart is too large, he was born honest, and I made him, so my guess is he will write tragic poems for a long time. But one day. When the landscape of his story gets large enough, I hope peace finds him. He will always be held. I hope he writes me into the mother I always wanted to be