Pancakes

29 September 2008, 10:55 PM

He asked me to make him pancakes,
and somewhere inside I sighed a deep,
exhausted sigh- I had wanted to sleep
until the last possible moment tomorrow.
Getting up in time for breakfast robs me
of fifteen minutes of comfort and home
in my warm bed that I won't ever get back.

But outwardly I smiled, said yes,
and my affirmation opened a door into
the broken heart of a little boy,
made a way in the wilderness for my son
to say the words I knew would come
the day his father left, the day I knew
we would never come back,
and we all were surely better for it.

My son told me a story with his eyes
and tears which, for now, did not fall
because while other places seem less so,
this house will always be home.
I make him pancakes, and by this simple
(if sometimes grudging) act, he knows.
He knows my love for him.