JEFF KNORR
WAITING ON FAMILY COURT
I know little of lawyers and courts.
The slow wait for papers processed
is like hoping for rain in summer.
So today I paint your room
and figure you’ll be home soon.
I think of you in a crib a country away
and there’s a drip in the door
needs brushing out. A thousand
horse hairs slide like skates
over the baseboard. I sweat
in new paint, go back and
work it in so I am in your wall,
my secret way to watch you sleep
when we’re all under the thumb of night.
Later I’ll slip on the ladder,
leave half a hand print high
on the wall to almost hold you on days
when I will work and you’ll play.
In the corner behind the rocker
I sneeze and leave a lash in tacky
paint so I can read to you, watch,
tell you stories in summer nights
after grandfather’s slick-handled
brushes are hung away on their nails.
I’ve never been much good with stars.
But I search tonight
this dark sky pulling itself west.
I look for Orion’s belt you showed me years ago,
for the bear, because I call our son Osito,
and hope that across this canyon of night
our eyes might turn in the same direction,
reflect, become a moment of gravitational love.
This river of stars churns across the sky,
leaps forward under clouds like wild horses.
In an instant I feel you,
a ripple rising from deep, slow water, and we meet
under the low branches of our cherry tree
shifting against this autumn night.
