Don’t touch that.

He keeps the kids
away from his stuff — his guitar,
his writing desk.

Don’t be part of me.

How would he handle it
if the kids turned out better
than he was, better than he’d imagined?

Don’t upstage me.

If the kids upstage him, if they
sing better, play better? He’d have
to get really, really quiet.

He would have to choose between
being better or being himself
and finding some peace in here.

But if the kids — even one kid —
wrote better, wrote one poem
or a hundred or more better?

He’d whisper against them
and beam proudly while
wishing for poison;

praying to whatever evil
there was to offer a drink
to them — no. He wouldn’t.

But it would be tough. He
would double down on his own work
and pat them on the head.

Pat them on their little head
before it got as big as his own;
curse the gods who made them both.

Don’t go in there, or out there.

Afraid of his kids getting older,
afraid of his kids being better. Afraid
of not being able to measure it —

long side of this world
he’d never seen. They could.
They did. What a joke, he thought,

if they ended up better than him
at the thing that he held most dear.
Double down, then. He smiled, ate poison,

doubled down. Fuck
the guitar, the singing voice.
Do what he could till he dies in relief.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T