The Wood Bench

The wooden bench swing dangles
From metal chains wrapped
Around a branch high up--
High above the balcony
Where I watch the abstracted shadow
Sliced grey into the pale light, rosied strange
By new sun.
The undulating pattern writhes in the wind.
I drink my coffee and recall the twins
And her child in play.

Cigarette smoke cobras around and into my palm.
The remembered children, who now sleep
Peacefully only yards away, stretched
Waterproof bodies over the snow,
Arced arms and legs re-creating my already perception of them.
A smile leaves behind pained past;
And the smoke fills my once hollow chest
With a warmth, new and welcome
Like hers in our bed, but without the aroma
Of her sauced loins, her welcoming wetness.

It is foreign, this contentment;
One requiring a readjustment of a pessimistic
Default setting honed smooth by angry batterings
Eroding hope into an eviscerated carcass.
But I am no longer that. I work and play and parent and love
Like any man might had he not
Felt and seen and heard what is known.
Is it sweeter because I have?
Does the clean man's “happy” not count the same?
Here's the start. I no longer count.
Measurements are for growth charts pencil marked
Inside door frames and along lengths of counter tops.
There is no score nor was there ever.

When I learned to count as my children have
The necessity to remember every number was crucial.
But score is a verb, meant for meat, not children.
Absolution is self-reflexive. Grammar is felt.
Each sentence is a recrimination, until you teach.
Then the swing has four rungs against the back
And leaves no scarring in the snow.