childhood in your vaulted room-
computer, CDs, posters, a decade-
collection of cockatiel feathers.
You left your only suit, worn
for your Bar Mitzvah. A neighbor
tied your tie knot because we didn’t
know how. Your Matt Christopher
books gather dust.
3, 4 nights a week we read them at bedtime.
On nights you were with Dad, I missed
our good-night kisses. We read these books
while you got used to speech therapy,
braces on your teeth, eye glasses,
with a prescription that would change
twice more within that first year.
Your eyes, mute mouth, bigger body
screamed “help” as you traveled
between 2 homes, and I, in my own
middle-aged hell, tried to remedy
problems with specialists. We stopped
speech but added Gary, the therapist,
as you became taciturn, tongue-tied,
to express anger towards your dad,
and me, tense as a drawn bow,
with my full-time job and school.
Always, dinner to make, homework
to complete, bath, bed. Sometimes,
in darkness, when I kissed you good
night, you’d share your sadness, fears,
knowing I’d stay longer. I wished
the world for you. I gave you bedtime.
Joan Gerstein, a retired educator and psychotherapist, is beginning her eighth year of teaching creative writing to incarcerated veterans. Joan has been writing poetry since childhood, and her first book of poetry, Theories of Relativity, was published by Garden Oak Press in 2021. She is active in the San Diego poetry community.
