Hush

for my son
The way a tired Chippewa woman
Who’s lost a child gathers up black feathers, 
Black quills & leaves
That she wraps & swaddles in a little bale, a shag 
Cocoon she carries with her & speaks to always 
As if it were the child,
Until she knows the soul has grown fat & clever, 
That the child can find its own way at last; 
Well, I go everywhere
Picking the dust out of the dust, scraping the breezes 
Up off the floor, & gather them into a doll 
Of you, to touch at the nape of the neck, to slip 
Under my shirt like a rag—the way
Another man’s wallet rides above his heart. As you 
Cry out, as if calling to a father you conjure 
In the paling light, the voice rises, instead, in me. 
Nothing stops it, the crying. Not the clove of moon,
Not the woman raking my back with her words. Our letters 
Close. Sometimes, you ask
About the world; sometimes, I answer back. Nights 
Return you to me for a while, as sleep returns sleep 
To a landscape ravaged
& familiar. The dark watermark of your absence, a hush.