It's Still Life

His Weather

I know a small boy made of bottled thunder.
His fingers hook into claws;
his body drops to a low animal growl,
a sound dragged up from somewhere older than words.

His mother says her boy frightens her sometimes,
that in those moments
love feels like a thing with edges.

I watch his hands braid themselves into fists.
When the growl rises, I do not flinch.
I take his hand.
“Come,” I say.
“There is something I want you to remember
when the fire comes back.”

We walk into the forest,
his anger still too large for his skin,
and there, on the leaf-dark floor,
a bird:
yellow breast, white brows,
perfectly still,
as if the world has paused to listen.

It looks at me without fear.
From my pocket I take a grape.
“Be still,” I whisper.
“Be the air.
Be the quiet between breaths.”
I place the grape on the earth.
The bird lifts, lands by my foot,
and eats.

The boy’s hands loosen.
The forest holds us.
Nothing speaks.

He steps closer,
his body remembering where to rest.

“Ready?” I ask.
He nods.

We return to the house,
and he throws himself —
fully clothed —
into the swimming pool,
joy breaking open the water
where anger had lived.

And I think:
this is my boy’s son.
And I will love him—
every breath of him—
whether his fire burns gold or blue,
whether it warms or scorches,
no matter its colour,
no matter its heat.