textbook

smile,

why does the child crawl slowly though a forest path?

his body malnourished and young,

his mind unsculpted and preyed upon,

his home too far from artificial knowledge.

boy loves home,

loves to taste honey in the cool damp air from the front room,

loves his mother's song and the paper she lays before him on a wooden shrine,

home there is rhythm,

early hours to eat and be,

and as light sleeps low in the trees, a knock at the door,

father is home, holding his love by the stove-light, and boy slips between them where he feels safest,

like before he was born,

some part of him wishes he could stay here forever.

Boy must dress like father, tiny cotton, too-big socks.

he is awake before the light today,

he feels alive and resents the quiet of a world that used to cradle him at this hour,

he is washed and eats, a state of being undone, and watered like a flower

go along, through the forest,

to the future

where you will build honeycombs like family,

and fold papers like you once crafted,

and count the lyrics in your mother song