The World and Will

It’s a word wound, the callus on the side of his right index finger
worn thick from jotting words with his best #10, bold-point, G-2 Pilot pen.

Eager to get his bold point across, he bears down hard on his writing pad,
sometimes ripping the page into feathers.

“Dad,” he writes, commanding my attention. P-e-s-i, he scrawls,
refusing to add a second “p”
because he knows I know damn well what he means.

Other words I can’t make out,
though I’ve watched him write them a thousand times.

What looks like b-o-d-i-l-e-o, “bodileo,” may be “blueberry.”
Or maybe he digs Bo Diddley’s blues, and wants to know if I do, too.

S-w-a-b-p-e-r could be “supper,” or it could be “swashbuckler,”
his way of injecting the conversation with pirates.

Each night before bed, I rub ointment into his finger’s thickened skin,
though part of me says let it be. Let it be, I think, and let it spread.

Let it spread and cover his hands, his arms, his torso.
Let it protect his legs and feet and neck and head.

Let it encase him, enshroud him like a rhino’s hide, impervious,
shielding his eyes from insolent stares,
his heart from the sting of those who only notice his deficits.

But, no. I rub, anointing his callus with healing balm,
for he needs feathers, not a shell.

He has his pad, his favorite pen,
and nothing should come between the world and Will.

After a career as a Presbyterian pastor and marriage and family therapist, David Cameron writes poems and stories in the mountains of Western North Carolina where he lives with his spouse, Kathryn, also a poet, and son, Will, also a writer with his favorite bold point, #10, G-2 Pilot pen.