Not exactly what he wants to hear when it comes
to his daughter’s latest boyfriend
his son’s unconventional choice of career
but even here he’s got to concede
it leaves the door open just past the paranoia
to the pitch of the great outdoors
where he once rolled his own laughing bones
a lucky puppet dangling loose strings but still
largely at the mercy of the unseen
which seemed at the time no more frightening
than the invisible forces that hug a sky-scraper in place
or coax an apple to kiss the myth-soaked ground

A bruising he could hold in the palm of his hand
as time and planet went spinning spendthrift
beneath the cash-strapped stars
bright futures going largely unnoticed to the naked eye
on all those nights not spent scoping out the distance
or worrying about dark matter’s defying summation
fate’s account running out to the farthest decimal place
a mathematics quite simple in the end
the physics of one foot in front of the next
getting the hang of getting down to earth and staying
blunt enough to know not to always go
for bone but sharp enough to guess
just when to cut some slack