Summer 2023: 42, Just Like Her Daddy, Frank Freeman

His mother stands on the stone walkway
of Faneuil Hall, her coat wind-wrapped
around her, one foot lifted as a reflex
to keep her balance in a gust.
Sometime during her visit here
she will tell him about the time
when her parents dumped her with relatives
she hardly knew and her new kitten
just disappeared and no one said
anything to her about it and she was too scared
to ask, what happened, where’s my kitty?
And she will tell him that, wearing
his tweed coat and big stylish hat,
he looks just like her daddy who died
a long time ago and in a dream forgave her
for not taking care of him
when he was dying
spitting blood into an empty coffee can.
And he will have to talk on the phone
with her husband, the third charmer, who will blow up
about how much the credit card bill
is going to be with all the state and city taxes.
How can he forgive her for not taking care of him,
she who was not taken care of
who with her rolled-up jeans
makes him want to call her, “my little girl”?
How can he forgive her until he can stroll to her
down the corridors of a developing dream?
Four blue balloons strain
at their strings behind his mother
eager to shoot away.
He snips the strings and watches them expose
the falling sky.