The Talk

When your son
turns 13 and the clock
tells you it is time
for "The Talk"
before it is too late
to go back to innocence, 

life becomes a complex
set of rules and words
that do all they can
to circle in a dance
of something close
to understanding

the body
and the ways
this boy is launching taller
than his mother
toward other women
who do not
marvel at the change
of his voice from child
to man
but in other ways
that involve
a language
that demands the
naming of body parts
and the way they fit
and move.

We shift,
my boy and I,
uneasy
at the newness
of this unfamiliar
set of words
and  return
to what we know.

I am holding him
in my arms
like I did
when he was a baby.
We look one another in the eyes
with so much honesty
it seems impossible
to teach him
all the words
he will need to know
to find all the happiness
one lifetime
allows.

I tell him again
of a love
that will sustain him
beyond the body
to before his cells
divide and grow
with others.

Here he knows
where he came from
and why the blood
of this woman
is a seal
of God
on his
soul.