FACES

My son looks towards the sky
for the planes he can hear
but can’t see behind the clouds.
His face studies and yearns.
I think of all the people I loved,
try to remember their faces too.

Once, in a burst of something
I must have thought of as love
he wrinkled his nose at me.
Eyes tell us so much and they pace
empty ground for signs of movement
or a stick thick as a leg.

Trains rasp in the distance
and I think I hear a siren,
but what I see has me forgetting.
My son, gently, placing a worm
in the strawberry garden,
holding up his hands sparkling
with dirt, a smile clear as light.

Andrew McSorley is the author of What Spirits Return (Kelsay Books, 2019). A graduate of the MFA program in creative writing, his poems have previously appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as The Minnesota Review, UCity Review, HAD, Birmingham Arts Journal, and many others. He lives in Appleton, Wisconsin, where he works as a librarian at Lawrence University.