hand in hand

Bedfellows

bedtime brings decisions,
sometimes it is the red velvet dress,
but it can just as easily be
the taffeta number with puffy sleeves,
or the flowery one with shoulder straps.

and that’s not all,
I tell him that he has to take off
the ballet slippers or the black taps
or the clear plastic pumps
because nobody wears shoes to bed -

nobody - not even his big sister,
who is already down to her underwear,
he will follow suit, but first
he raises his ever-handy plastic sword,
he is the very picture of liberty herself.

later on, close in bed alongside my son,
both of us done with the storybooks,
both of us blessed by Sister’s kisses,
I regard the way he clutches my wrist
hard on his breast, soft on his cheek.

I hardly know my own hand,
it looks too large against him,
it looks more like some talisman,
and the small hands holding it
and me look nothing like mine.

I shift, he squeezes me as if to ask
where do you think you’re going?