Boy on a Trampoline

A poem by Michelle Bitting

No friend to call, the afternoon’s a bust,
so he goes out to pick dandelions,
strews the lawn, brown from winter
and neglect with their blown heads.
Then one quick hoist and he’s mounted the giant tarpaulin
like a gladiator entering the Coliseum,
his spring so high and glorious
a shriveled audience of daisies perks up,
peering out from their withered robes.

What are you looking at?
I asked him once, curious about
the blue patch he’s always fixed to,
window of sky propped open
between two sycamores on the hill behind.
Head cocked back, expression only bliss,
I’m hearing, Mama, he said, and bounced on,
his body fused with the quiet world pulsing around.
Bee, sparrow, blade, ovum, bark:
God’s flea-size voice ricocheting in every lively cell—
and this boy, my hero, my divining ear,
center of his own disordered realm,
calling me to come inside—
be silent, listen.