Only Child - Shearwater

Your mother’s milk

Your father’s anger

The razor wire surrounding him

And far below

Their droning engines

You lay in bed

Blowing out stars

The masters of

Your lonely kingdom

Pulled you along

With red-rimmed eyes

Through endless hours

Of drill and harness

Until you fell, surrendering

But still they never laid the gun down, only child

They sit like lions in a sunbeam, only child

And never came down

Remember all

The roads descending

To who you were, for blurred-out miles?

You smolder now

Coals and embers

Under the frost of indolence

I see you never lay the gun down, only child

You live your life behind a window, only child

And as you barrel down a bloodline, only child

Rise in the air over the mountains

Run like the days that cut them down

I see you now

As you relive them

Break like a wave, dissembling

But when you’re lying down among them, only child

There is no sound to fill the silence, only child.

Forgive them

When you lay the gun down, only child, it’s not surrendering--

Only you know how