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Holly Farris

ISO: Poet

Some days, ways I turn
lead to so few words it
makes me hungry. Unrhymed,
I limp beside him,
whining. Baby boy
blue, years too soon; Mom's
not got a lot to soothe him.

At the end of a bone-tiring shift,
I, famished as he, slurp up
milk, mummy us in gray blankets, mute
coos we could share.

Very little chatter later, words we
dread, unfriendly, spill
from formal letters: month's end, evict.
Plus a pretty one: paternity.

Anyone who's me knows silence goes after
the last Pamper in the wilted pack,
the borrowed toy he hands back to everyone
drooling at daycare. My son's
block-lettered name isn't on
one thing anyone else wants.

What I most want to give him
is shimmer, crystal words to
describe the exact blue of his eyes,
the man he'll grow to be. But for me,
minus language luxury, I'm looking
to find us a poet. I ran that ad!
I'm Mom ISO, in search of, a man.

Some man whose hands,
white and thin like ivory chopsticks,
needn't do one thing. Decoration, in
a way, he'd be home to frost and swirl

words, bake us a cake nobler
than sliced Wonder Bread
stale from the day-old store.