Sunday, May 6, 2012

They Will Take My Island

by Jonathan Bennett


This afternoon, his Asperger's exploded
in the Forsythia bush, the rage against
the gold sprung unfairness of everyone else's
understanding of basics, like the discernment
of silliness, or hurt feelings, or language
that is used to mean both this and that.

He digs a hole in the garden, one deep
enough to climb in now, which he does,
the tightness of it just about right,
the top of his head poking out of the mulch.
He is larval. At one with his beloved insects,
murmuring, worrying about F3 tornadoes.   

At night the fear sweeps across the bow
of his sleep, pressed against his father, I am
ballast or maybe keel, until light comes again
to erase what goes on, horrors measured
in fathoms, or leagues, broken only by
the bioluminescence of an anglerfish.