Kicking Out My Son

1

Having kids is so much fun
Today I’m kicking out my son.

2

Oxen-ringed, spiked canary-
golden, pierced with pins
and banded like a bird:

Wounded, who knows
how, by whom?
Spoiled, they say by me—

Now his handsome face
is sorrowful— red-brown
break-dance rug-burned
brow—red-brown eyes
bruised by sudden weariness:

He knows we’re serious.

*

Nights half-listening,
half in lucid dream for heavy shoes
to scuff the creaking stairs at dawn,
then down the hall to piss:

I sleep if I know this.


*

Nights no tires crunch the stones,
rousing dogs to bark, back-door
banging in the frame—

Ears ringing false alarm, I call his name
in morning’s glare, and there—
No body in the bed, no blinking on the phone:

His fate unknown!


3

Past shame, past struggle of my own
somehow I’ve grown, somehow
I’ve brought forth progeny, and now

I doubt my purpose in it.

4

Knocking in the chest, a mother’s heart
beats to spinning nights her children roam,
under raving stars, up way too late

Trance-dancing neon mine-fields,
testing the waters and the fire-waters
uninitiated, thirsting flight or fate—

*

I cannot tolerate

breaking into sweat while
safely shrouded in my downy nest.

I need my rest.
*

The sleepers snore who share these walls,
their breaths meshing in the halls, the dogs snore
and all ignore my useless fear, as bitter as beer.
At every step,

Every step in this house squeaks.


5

You underestimate your own
colossal vulnerability:
My fear that if you leave this nest,
you’ll die.

We cry and cry.

*

Fledgling bird, new wings
still wet with dew—

And yet you flew!



Linda Weissinger Lupowitz 2002

This poem is posted to mark the end of this period of time in my life, and to wish my son the very best in his journey to healing. He has been gone out of town since October, living in a "foreign country" - Tucson - and our recent visit was a wonderful reunion. So far, it's all a blessing. One day at a time.

(See also Bill Urell's Addiction and Recovery resource - a very funny and honest video here and check out Spiritual River as well, here.