Son
Before he can understand, there is a song
she whispers, something like the sea,
an echo of something from before —
before he arrived and was awash in newness.
She sings and hums her song, her smell,
and then he begins to notice the light
the other smells: coffee, lipstick,
the other languages, and he learns each
thing by heart. She begins to speak to him
in the new way, one round word at a time
released between her lips and tongue, and
he begins to make her sounds, the sounds
of the sea they are swimming in, and now
there is nothing private between them;
this is everyone’s language, the language
of the world; he wears his new shoes
and likes them; he goes away and she
cannot follow, and when he returns he tells
her in the language of the world what happened
there. He listens to music she has never heard,
eats food she has never cooked. Finally he buys a suit
and a ticket to Bogota, sends her a post card
from another world.
she whispers, something like the sea,
an echo of something from before —
before he arrived and was awash in newness.
She sings and hums her song, her smell,
and then he begins to notice the light
the other smells: coffee, lipstick,
the other languages, and he learns each
thing by heart. She begins to speak to him
in the new way, one round word at a time
released between her lips and tongue, and
he begins to make her sounds, the sounds
of the sea they are swimming in, and now
there is nothing private between them;
this is everyone’s language, the language
of the world; he wears his new shoes
and likes them; he goes away and she
cannot follow, and when he returns he tells
her in the language of the world what happened
there. He listens to music she has never heard,
eats food she has never cooked. Finally he buys a suit
and a ticket to Bogota, sends her a post card
from another world.
Gail Rudd Entrekin has taught poetry and English literature at California colleges for 25 years. Her books of poems are: The Art of Healing (with Charles Entrekin) (Poetic Matrix Press, 2016), Rearrangement of the Invisible (Poetic Matrix Press, 2012), Change (Will Do You Good) (Poetic Matrix Press, 2005), nominated for a Northern California Book Award, You Notice the Body (Hip Pocket Press, 1998), and John Danced (Berkeley Poets Workshop & Press, 1983).
Poetry Editor of Hip Pocket Press since 2000, she edits the press’s online environmental literary magazine, Canary. She is editor of the poetry anthology Yuba Flows (2007) and the poetry & short fiction anthology Sierra Songs & Descants: Poetry & Prose of the Sierra (2002).
Her poems have been widely published in anthologies and literary magazines, including Cimarron Review, Nimrod, Ohio Journal, and Southern Poetry Review, and her poems were finalists for the Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry from Nimrod International Journal in 2011. She and her husband live in the hills of San Francisco’s East Bay.
Poetry Editor of Hip Pocket Press since 2000, she edits the press’s online environmental literary magazine, Canary. She is editor of the poetry anthology Yuba Flows (2007) and the poetry & short fiction anthology Sierra Songs & Descants: Poetry & Prose of the Sierra (2002).
Her poems have been widely published in anthologies and literary magazines, including Cimarron Review, Nimrod, Ohio Journal, and Southern Poetry Review, and her poems were finalists for the Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry from Nimrod International Journal in 2011. She and her husband live in the hills of San Francisco’s East Bay.