Family

Family

Children circling sticks in the sand,

“Are you coming down to the water with Granny?”

The swell of a baby in a sling soothed by the

Pattertat of mammy’s hand

All come down to see

The lost boy

Blue as a newborn

Big as regret

Stranded

And tended to by silence and fingers that touch and rive

Tiny patterings that can’t speak in distances

Or know the family clicks and ticks

He remembers the cloud belly

Of Mother above him

Now the sun

Unmothers them

And a man’s knees

Press into his skin and he sees for the first time

such small eyes that peer into him like he was the sea,

I’ve seen sisters do this – stare into each other’s

Eyes to guess what the other was thinking

A number, but most often a colour

Whales can’t see blue

And humans can’t love

The mongrel air

That makes us

kin.