HEART ATTACK

Throwing his small, blond son

into the air, he begins to feel it,

a slow-motion quivering, some part

broken loose and throbbing with its own pulse,

like the cock's involuntary leaping

toward whatever shadow looms in front.

It is below his left shoulder blade,

a blip regular as radar, and he thinks of wings

and flight, his son's straight soar and fall

out of and into his high-held hands.

He is amused by the quick change

on the boy's little face: from the joy

of release and catch, to the near terror

at apex.  It is the same with every throw.

And every throw comes without

his knowing.  Nor his son's.  Again

and again, the rise and fall, like breathing,

again the joy and fear, squeal and laughter,

until the world becomes a swarm of shapes

around him, and his arms

go leaden and prickled, and he knows

the sound is no longer laughter

but wheezing, knows he holds his son

in his arms and has not let him fly

upward for many long moments now.

He is on his knees, as his son stands,

supporting him, the look in the child's face

something the man has seen before:

not fear, not joy, not even misunderstanding,

but the quick knowledge sons

must come to, at some age

when everything else is put aside-

the knowledge of death, the stench

of mortality-that fraction of an instant

even a child can know, when

his father does not mean to leave, but goes.