For Rui Boy

Saturday afternoon,
Tried to sleep, head pulsating, aching eyes, two burn circles of squint

Laying out, flat on my back

In half-lit room, book sliding off,
THUMP to the floor like a closing door,
Blanket pulled out, sheet twisted around leg,
Brown gourd-like lamp on chair wobbling
T-shirts strewn
Blue court paper file under glasses
Balanced on plastic file box

Try to place glasses to nose, navigate

Empty plastic ibuprofen bottle, kick skitters across floor where I place
Heels to stand, pulling on water bottle, trying to see through fog
—
I SHOUTED  myself awake, reaching to keep Rui’s little pink hand from getting pinch-caught in a closing glass door
“No!“

Sharaku Restaurant, Stuyvesant Street, Saturday night dinner special for two, following long afternoon Tompkins Square – On the black tar playground with the peeling red concrete barriers, climbing the jungle gym, talking with fathers on the cracked green benches

A sad man sat beside me, his daughter no longer only his, he told me
His wife had her in their Harlem apartment, he keeping her for play today;

She obviously loved him, the daughter
She ran to us, touched, then returned
Rode the slides with my son,
They laughed, climbed up, hunched high on top, pushed kiwi-sized sneakers in front, slid back haphazardly together
Shoes and  pant leg and feet in air, giggles, little screams,
Climbing as we watched.

Enter Murray Street, older
Taller, slimmer, starting to practice aloof and only age four,
Sporadic, well-learned maternal lessons

I’m more bent
He’s Goneawayfortostayalittlewhilebuthescomingbackifhegoestenthousandmiles
—
Rui  today, didn’t hear a Poulenc Nocturne
Rui
Didn’t catch the sock ball, the one with the red, blue, yellow, orange and black stripes
Didn’t finish that story about the Tar Baby
Didn’t do the Faraday  experiment with the iron filings,  leaf of paper and  bar magnet, proving that invisible forces like magnetism are real

Invisible forces are real though, whether governments know
Invisible forces to moist eyes,
Took my baby away,
One day,  invisible forces will overtake them, will find them in their hiding places
Will seep from out of their brains, like Moloch
Moloch the loveless, Mental Moloch
Who frightens him out of his natural ecstasy