There is a boy as tall as a tree,
who carried his decades on branches
His shoulders were the neighbor’s fences, lost baseballs and skinned knees.
His arms held the tireswings.
The blue in his eyes, easily a place to skip stones.
A laugh in the air around him,
The warmth of mother’s dinner,
A Christmas morning smile.

Boys like this are usually fairy tales,
because it is easier to write about good people
than to raise them.

All boys grow, to become statues or men,
but he carved a spot in the bark on the tree
and that is where the little boy will always be.
Running down hallways and drumming in tabletops.
The child exists, so does he.