It’s too windy to fly a kite today, son!
Get out of the neighbor’s tree.
Remember what your mother said before she flew:
“Each green pod is full of peas,
shell one and they all get shelled.”
Remember her paring knife and all the boiling pots.
No wonder the old girl took to the sky.
It’s too windy for a kite today, son!
Telephone poles are swaying back and forth.
The crows are soaring straight-winged.
It’ll take the fuzz off your ears
and you won’t have a leg left to stand on.
Forget those holes in the sky.
Listen to me, your dear old Dad!
Forty-six and my head clean as an eggshell.
Been ploughing the wind too damn long.
Get out of that tree!
What will the neighbors think?
Are you really my own true blood?
Remember your poor mother,
all the broken pins in her hair,
that sad and cloudy thunder in her eyes
before she flew away with the Kite Man.
Appeared in Asimov's SF Magazine
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