to the mid thirties platinum blonde mom I saw at Wolfe Park tonight with her 7 or 8 or maybe 9 year old boy

listening to that I guess grunge band                                       as the usual kingdom of clouds road in on the lowering citrus sky 

or for that matter to any mom about that age out and about roaming beneath generous summer skies with your about that age son:

It's not that I was staring exactly, in case you were wondering 

in case you looked up the hill at me through those dark black sunglasses I know so well, wondering why is that fifty year old lady with pink shoes glaring at us, the same way I saw up all those hills at staring elders feeling stared at or judged (for certainly there was so so much to judge)

What I really want to tell you is that I wasn't staring: I was mesmerized 

I was watching a movie of my old life: I was there, that was me, he is my child, you are me right down 

to the scattered, unsynchronized, sleep deprived, over caffeinated, text checking, starving, free spirited, free to be you and me micro moment exactly, to the bandshell music that only rarely, but sometimes perfectly captured the moment as you swizzled your neck around to check on your  blonde firefly: his little jumps and hopscotches and mama calls, falling freely into the summer night, his voice so edibly sweet. 

I want to tell you I am not staring at you at all: I am drinking you, I am feasting on a mirage, I am believing in miracles.  I am loving you

If you look up the hill just for even a second, we could bridge on the arc of a smiling sun so i could tell you things, so we could prolong things. But you never looked my way, go figure, you never did, you moved too fast.  And  I wished and wished that you would stay longer, that this movie would never end but a million other things were calling and in one exquisite swoop you were going, biking away with my son.