You’ll always be a thing of sun-dazzle and sweetness
soft as fingertips, suckling nectar and tuned to bliss—
No butterfly will be gale-torn, wasp-stabbed, clawed
or pinned—not while I inhale your hair, listening
What do I say—that boys turn into men
their shoulders broaden though not to a wingspan
That a boy knows flight when he runs—
the cape of the universe streams behind him
That a boy’s mind is never caught, he
asks what no one can find answers for
It’s his mother must change shape
if she wants to follow him there
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Olivia McCannon was born on Merseyside and lives in London, after nine years in France. Her collection Exactly My Own Length was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize and won the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize.