trying

to

make

sense

softwarm babyfingers stretching out and grasping, learning the feel of the world.
the woollen smell of a father's jumper.
the milkscent of a mother's breast.

and i sit and wonder how he'll grow up.

and debbie's sleeping, catching the precious hour before the next feed,
and i'm thinking of a line from t.s. eliot's the wasteland

these fragments i have shored against my ruins

sometimes i feel the fragments giving way, disintegrating and buckling.

i hear him gurgling over the baby monitor, not awake, just lying there.

and i sit and wonder how he'll grow up.

i want to move beyond my stasis.
i want to cast aside my shell and my reticence and my diffidence.
i want to reinterpret my fragments into a story.
i want to reinvent myself.

ah matthew, i want to make you proud of your dad.