Green Tea

Today you’re young, and
your face reflects mine
like a lying mirror.
In ten years we’ll both be old,
Mother and son, the same.

We’ll face west at evening
and watch shadows
creep across the deck
holding mugs of green tea
to keep our hands from growing cold.

I’ll scratch the weathered wood
with half-remembered stories,
as you trace a finger
across the words:

Look! the first woman said,
I have made a man!
A novelty of skin to wrap a soul,
a memory about the future.

Look! I said after my own labors,
See his perfect glowing cheek!
Ripe as fruit, which will someday
detach and fall away from its source.

Each new face writes itself
a creased and studied book,
old as the one I once read
in your infant eyes,
reflecting the strangeness of origin.

Maybe you’ll laugh
when I read you my little story.
Then I will inhale
sweet clouds of green tea
and observe your lengthening shadow.