“The Bones of His Face” by Jan Lewbin
I invited
My son
Glorious and brilliant
Yet so adrift separate distant
From me
In that painful precarious place
Between boy and man
To approach
And come close
He laid his head in my lap
Rested his shoulders on my thighs
And nestled his lean body
Along the length of mine
So that
I could soothe
The taut skin between his brows
Circle my finger tips
At his temples
And stroke
The bones of his face
In a way that allowed him
To heavy back into me
To soften with me
And close those eyes
Which can flash vicious black shards
I could have easily bent down
To brush his nose with mine
In an Eskimo kiss
But I didn’t
As it was
This return of my son
Was nearly all I could bear
Without my own tears
Splashing onto
The bones of his face
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Jan Lewbin’s Artist Statement:
My mother has reminded me, my whole life, that Mr. Fitzpatrick, one of my high school English
teachers, said that I should be a writer. I did not become a writer. Instead, I studied
Communications at UCLA and created a career for myself in architecture/design. I got married
and divorced. I raised two glorious children. And now, finally, I write! Personal narrative,
memoir-based pieces and poems are my way to explore and share the small every day
moments and the larger moments which shake our worlds. I live in Los Angeles, California,
where I am learning Latin dancing and can fairly easily get into the Eastern Sierra, which I love.
