Car, and: To My Nephew on his Tenth Birthday

Car

Each morning my son wakes mewith his litany of carsas this is the only wordhe knows. "Car" is an explosionof joy in finding a car."Car?" a requestto find another car. "Car Car"the command for me to fallon hands and kneesso perched on my backhe can pilot mearound the room.Cars bring him happinessthough happiness is not yet a wordhe knows. Soon his vocabularywill divide sorrow from joysatisfaction from regret.But for now, the chair is a carwithout the benefit of wheels.The dresser, a carup on blocks. Even this poemwould be a carpropelled only by the engineof my voice, but he is not yet interestedin poems. He is interested only inthe objects of this room. I transport himfrom sofa to settee, from table to TVas he pronounces each objecta car.This book, a car.His practice potty, a car.Even our dog miraculously becomes a caras he raises his bloodshot eyes:still life of a short-haired carwith spots. But then he shakesoff this newly acquired carnessour dog, and lowers his headto his pawsand grumbles himself back to sleep.

To My Nephew on his Tenth Birthday

Though you hide your thoughts from meI see how you look with longingat eight-year-olds rushing outto recess on the other side of your school.At times, you want to be like themwithout homework or choresstepping carelessly into the warm, spring air.But your hair has lost its spider's silk;baby fat no longer fills the foldsof your cheeks.I suppose it's an uncle's jobto tell you that America loves youth.Here, nothing is more preciousthan a photo of a toddlerbeside his dog—which, I hate to point out, is a photoyou posed for many years ago.Gone, now, is your affectionfor Elmo and your great loveof Matchbox cars. Gone too the lisp of your preschool yearsand those musical burstsof laughteryou so enjoyedwhenever fingers brushed the solesof your feet.Now you readage-appropriate booksabout baseball, motorbikes, and sharks.You cut chicken without helpfrom your dad. And with your friendsyou pedal your three-speedfrom your home to the five-and-ten—which, as you know, is also the ageyou've turned todayan age devoid of knock-knock jokesand merry-go-rounds.Ahead, you'll encounter an endless paradeof achievement testsinterrupted only by fitsof acne and the occasional sorrowbrought on by romancecoming to a close.Someday you'll be oldlike mewith tufts of gray feathering your ears.You will go to a jobperhaps to bars as well.At night you will languish in bednext to a person you married a long time ago.But as you are only ten, at the dawnof your double digit yearsyou don't yet know these thingsfirsthand. You only knowthat there are beautifully wrapped presentswaiting for you in the other room.There are people wearing pointy hats and somewhere a cakelandscaped with candles.Beyond this, most likelyyou have the vague sensethat there are many thingsyou must soon put away, like bookswith short sentencesor DVDs of talking fishor your favorite blue shirtthat bears the image of a dinosaura shirt whose soft cotton sleeveshave finally become too shortyour body outgrowing this garmentonly a month or two ago.