After Thomas,
during Warhammer,
and before girls,
the words slowed.
I could see them in his head be swallowed before they reached outside.
Or, they came out like pellets aiming to wound with the force of what he knows.
Fragile sits his ego forming.
Silence a shell wrapped around his need to know.
He entered a long tunnel yesterday,
I cannot accompany him.
His hormones and changes,
his feelings,
fighting a way into the world.
I wait for him,
watch carefully the swing of his eyes,
the texture of his hunch.
I wait,
just when I am sure that he is lost,
and just when I want to shake him and scream, ” come back to me”,
he drops in .
“Hi Dad”,
smiles,
snuggles for second,
comes home.
[The title is from the essay by Jean Amery, On the Impossibility and Necessity of being a Jew
Dadhood 