Ribs and Elbows

Quiet Boy, boney boy
all ribs and elbows
and pnderance over simple things.
Did you run your fingers over the grooves,
believe the world you felt
more than the often lying light of it?
Did you think there must be some
secret trick, some magical more-to-it-ness
to the mundane machinery,
the way you do even now?

You faintly glowing ember boy,
grandfather's tobacco boy,
water held tight in hands boy, there's no keeping you here.
Though i'm told your mother sees you often
I am left with only memories and mimicry.
At times, in homage, I seal my lips shut
with hours of silence.
Time spent staring at my hands
wondering which wrinkle in the lines
was you.

You under-kitchen-table-surfer,
you excavator of old valises,
you who knows as much about why
old people hid away old things
as I know why I keep them now.
That relic in your lap
will be yours one day, or one like it.
Treasure hunter turned memory maker.

I sometimes wonder, as some men often do,
would i truly become my father
and make another you. Or at least
become my own man
with my own wife and son.
Will he explore the ruins of our closets?
Brave the perilous journey of the high attic?
Plumb the depths of the under-bed?  Will he be
a quiet boy, a boney boy,
all ribs and elbows?