Viscosity
i.
My son was born with arteries
full of air.
I would sit in the rocking chair
and watch the security blanket rise
(like the time, four years later,
he would drape the same blanket over his head
pretending to be a ghost,
but I could see his feet hovering
inches above the floor).
ii.
During the quiet moments in church,
he would feel the veins in my hand, rolling them
over the ligaments and marveling
at their strength.
His carotid artery would then
inflate and try to escape from its skin,
and my son would pray for more gravity,
while I wished his veins would hover
inches above the earth,
free of his hollow bones.
iii.
More and more, his body became
a cathedral.
The doctor would snake a camera through his aorta,
red blood cells wafting through
like motes.
His ribes: flying buttresses
or half-open hymnals.
iv.
One night, when he is seventeen,
I wait for him to float
back up to his room, and then,
once he sleeps,
I wait for the smoke in his veins to leak out,
covering the floor in grey as his pores become
volcanoes, or maybe geysers.
Free of the heavier air,
he will begin to rise, but stop
because his blanket pins him down.
v.
I anticipate him
breaking apart,
skin on the ground,
bones in a hovering pile,
organs knee-level,
but arteries and veins
maintaining their form,
snaking around the air
in and odd half-outline.
The veins that enter his skull
will be two hands,
maybe my wife's,
clutching space.
So I watch him through the smudged bedroom window,
his fiancee's hand splayed on his chest,
holding him down,
as we all wait for his molecules
to separate.
In a Perfect Romance."
