For a son
At nine you learned the calculus of knives,
the x-less algebra sarcastic thank yous do.
How you’ve groped for solutions,
slashed and jabbed. How deeply
you breathed those germs
that grew to strangling vines.

I should have cut you free,
but wrapped you tighter
so touch stilled your chest and you
exhaled broken mirrors, quiet
as you could, shards of self
drawn to shattered cries.

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