A Father’s Prayer
We started on the black hand side
or we started in the delivery room
or we’d barely started.
Barely old enough to feed ourselves, to
locate love on the insides of rib cages,
to know better.
And then you came, slow at first, like a gathering storm
or a seedling or a sapling. Your mother blooming and
my desire to retreat blossoming.
How is it so easy for you and me to switch roles,
I become the child and you the parent?
Sometimes it feels like parenting is constantly bracing
for impact.