Max
By Sarah Ruhl
With thanks to Maurice Sendak
Death no wild thing
and you a boy,
Max.
One night in your room
(or body)
a forest grew
and the walls
(or cells) became
transparent
because brightness
invites
transparency, I guess.
Then a little boat
to hospital smells.
Doctors called
the forest cancer,
not obscuring leaves.
And you a boy.
You say:
“Why can’t people use the word
courage
instead of something
vulgar and idiomatic
about manhood?”
Courage, I say,
is you,
Max.
In your wild suit
your small boat
and terrible forest
a man overnight––
no boy
could ever scale those walls.
You come home
and dinner is waiting,
still waiting, I hope, still warm.
*
And today my small boy
learned to swim.
He said: “The water held me, Mama.
It held me.”
Copyright Credit: Sarah Ruhl, "Max" from 44 Poems for You. Copyright © 2020 by Sarah Ruhl. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.
Source: 2020