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.