About having children

POETRY

By Guillermo Rebollo Gil

That thing that Hass said, that so long as you make it through the day, it’s not like the boy has to be in every poem per se, it’s that poems cannot begin without, are not even imaginable until I bring to mind what he said this morning about me smelling of socks and squash, and isn’t it sad, yes, that I’ll never grow small enough to fit under anything anymore, always having to wait at one end or the other, holding up a clean shirt for him to put on, so we can leave, please, and all the while I’m saying to myself, I should just write the poem in my head without him noticing I’ve escaped and so Hass comes up, the idea, for example, that the parent you are erases the luminous clarity of the poet you are too, are not, are too, or the notion that so long as I make it through the day without crushing his tiny fingers on the car door, I should be thankful for the true at first sight meaning of my life, which I am, as I stand here, a permanent escapee, from whatever other life the poet in me could have foreseen.