And the Shoes Will Take Us There in Spite of the Circumference

Which world? I wonder as the therapist tells me my son
            will never be able to live within it
                        Unless
Yes. I see the posed photos on her desk
            (daughter? husband?) she points to the chart
            which says my nine year-old son is really five
She says my son’s narrow interests (mathematics, Weird Al)
            will not allow him to enter
            the vast circumference of the universe
I stare into her double chin, down to the bunions on her feet
            pot belly, shirt tucked neat in her pants
She quotes Mel Levine who says kids who are not well-rounded can not succeed
She sends me to a room where I pay $117 for the hour
A screaming infant reaches for her mother’s glasses, throws them on the floor

Are you mad at me? my son asks as we walk out the door

I bend down, hold him so tight in my arms
So tight the green trees
So tight the blue and distant distant
Shape of my epiphany (were it half round, half yellow)
My son’s small body, his heart pounds against my chest
            and this world
Of detritus and oblivious footnotes
How the fluid gold floats
How sound fills
Space and captures the tiniest beyond
Particles, waves,
Mass of sunlight wrapped around our legs
Our hands

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