Todd Boss
Two Cameos
i. Imprint
Some things are impossible to erase.
My daughter slept all night without alarm
in the crook of my arm, her head on my chest.
My shirt was corduroy, and now she stands
before me in her Sunday best, a vision
of perfection, save for the ribs my old threads
printed, red across her face.
ii. Spell
This morning like an organ grinder’s monkey my
son, suddenly sleepy from his allergy medication,
pulls the woolen blanket off the couch and climbs
up onto the arm of the armchair where into my laptop
I’m “spelling” my “songs,” and settles his head on my
shoulder and watches the letters I make as I
make them. Unwittingly, he’s bound, spellbound,
by the way my hands play, by the shapes that take
shape at my bidding, bound by the words I use
to tell him into tomorrow, and bound
by the way the page’s white space gradually changes,
like a face that deepens, line by line, as it ages.
