Comments (5)Kathleen Kirk is the author of three poetry chapbooks and the poetry editor for Escape Into Life. Her poems appear in a number of print and online journals, including Leveler, Blue Fifth Review, and Right Hand Pointing. She has two children, a daughter, sweet 16, with a brand spanking new driver's license, and a son, the boy in the poem, now a beautiful young man, just turned 21 in June. She blogs about poetry, random stuff, and reading at Wait! I Have a Blog?!
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Quite a moving poem. I'm noting a bit of Sharon Olds influence.
Oh, Kathleen, so true. I see plainly the scar from seven stitches across the back of the Woolly Mammoth's head that reappeared each summer when he got his soft puppy dog buzz cut. His wonderful friend girl has no idea it is there.
How is it that a fourteen year-old boy is quite taken over by scorn? His clueless stance is more about you, than him. Rather I think it is you who feels "a world that deserves his mockery." Be honest and write your own rebel-down-to-the-ground-in-surround-sound poem.
Thanks for you comments, all!
Chris, I see "scorn" as a stage many teenagers go through, the family often coming through fine on the other side of it. As you say, "a world that deserves his mockery" reveals the mother-speaker's stance as well as the son's, a mark of my own honesty.
It's a wise mother who knows her own son. It's a wise poet who can speak for both.