PAULA FINN

My teenage son tells me it’s overrated,

loaded with hypocrisy.

Yet there it is, I say, oceans of it,

beating at the granite cliffs, or brackish,

laboring to keep its bottom feeders fed,

sometimes turquoise, tub-warm,

inviting swimmers in.

My son’s old enough to have heard me

ask my friends to stay and wish

they’d leave. He’s listened to me exclaim

I love you and mean, Please forgive me.

He’s watched me give him gifts

and later list them back to him.

And I’ve seen him board a bus

to a city of abandoned mills—birthplace

of the valentine’s card and smiley face—

hoping to buoy a friend

who hears screaming voices no one else can hear,

whose father back home drinks his tuition

in vodka from a sippy cup.