Little Foxes

Already lost,
whatever advantage
birth conferred over
the lower primates
to your brain, my son,
which unbeknownst to us
harbored a den
of sharp-toothed
little foxes:
elusive seizures
devouring your mind.
Forty years undetected,
they prevented deep learning,
sucked the marrow of your cells,
and got stronger.
With the new diagnosis,
I now see their bites
in the sudden buckling
of your knees,
your abruptly blank face
and slack jaw
before you return to yourself
like a boy who slipped out
his bedroom window at midnight
for a lethal kiss
and returned before his parents
missed him.
Now, too late,
I know the incontinence
is not your fault,
nor the clumsy hand
that dumps ice cream
down your shirt, nor
your forgetting
well-known habits.
But listen to me, going on.
It’s just that
the less you understand,
the more I want to tell you,
before you’re all gone.