Rugburn He doesn’t find blackened fingers in electrical sockets, or nooses in our low-hanging blind cords as I was warned. He’s crawling, the second day he’s waveringly fought gravity’s pull on his young limbs. I should be proud – nestled a few feet away on the floor of his nursery, fringing a landscape of toys landmined, scattershot. Some make noise as he bounds meticulously on his impromptu sally: a zigzagged assault on plush and plastic, on singsong education. A father has a bank he fills with moments. As my son grips a blue elephant to his mouth, my thumb is sliding across the screen of my phone. My friend has come back from Florida – rippling blue sea skin, frosted margarita glasses deafeningly clink their way into the nursery prodding out currency. My vision a pie chart, scalloping attention from this digital flame casting cave-drawing shadows on my son in the background – his war cries the only tug on my stupor. He may not find maiming in his own devices, but the trophies he’s hoisting atop every breath may find rusting in my fragmented attention. His conquests largely go unheralded until his hand finds the knobby skin of my kneecap stitching together the mosaic of my gaze.
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David Walker writes intermittently, at best. He is a husband and a father. He has published two poetry chapbooks and has one forthcoming. His work appears in Soundings East, Menacing Hedge, ELJ, Sediments, and others. He is also the founding editor at Golden Walkman Magazine.
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