John-Ward Leighton

FRACTURED

Daughter, Heather: 1992

Son, Ian: 1990The poetry of other men and women
pours off my sound track
and I sing along to the screen.
Long ago lovers
leave for Nicaragua
from a place two thousand
miles from my heart.
I talked to my son today
in the unusual
warm green of days
that are usually white and frozen
by this time.
He’s still that wonderful
twelve-year-old
even though he is
over forty and hardly
a boy.
We laughed on this day
when I’m usually bummed out.
His enthusiasm bubbled
over the cyber net
and an hour disappeared
in the joy.
My daughter is still
in the shadows
but there are cracks of light
and she may come out of
her hiding place.
The Queen of my heart
Princess Maya
is a promise we’ve
made to the future
and the recruits to her
teddy bear army
are on their way.
There is a son-in-law
I have never met
and some realities
I’ll never get.
All those things
that hardly seem to have mattered
are important now
because they were
fractured.