Pause
By Patricia J. Esposito
What is there of your black earth,
your white sun above the ferns and mango
where he, brown and young, works for supper,
what of his hot wax dripping, leaves dipped
in streams to wrap the candles taking form,
the humid road where he carts them along,
what in the smell of his papaya split
until evening’s tin where he shells his fish–
is here, in this aluminum and wallboard home
this control-conditioned heat and microwave hum,
the rise of powdered spice from potatoes
plastic-pouched and boiling? Beside me
the clock pendulum swings on battery,
and from the open window, on treated asphalt,
cars come, recede. My daughter, one by one,
fits turquoise beads on string. I say, “Laura,”
and her lips part, then close on what she sees–
burnt leather string threading an ocean through
her fingers, chaining a jeweled earth across
her chest. No, she knows nothing so defined;
she is only caught in the precision of a moment–
like you, making us pause while you paint the boy
in his time, to say this is him; he is this.
(previously published in Byline, September 2006)