To Your 13th Birthday

photo by Joshua Hoehne for unsplash

The ball you kick in the backyard touches
Everything. Yet, no one discovers truth;
It is revealed. The house will shake, your mom
Will yell from inside. Fence boards broken show
Their allegiance to your developing,
Sharpening passing skills, your strength; the goal’s
Net in paled tatters can’t hold anything
You send it anymore. The ball you kick
Touches everything: the now-shattered bird
Feeder; power lines; your brother’s turned head;
All of the neighbors’ backyards and a few
Of their dogs; each tree and many flower
Beds; the herb garden; the aluminum
Awning, dented, now housing a mother
Red-robin, neither amused nor annoyed
By the ball you tend to kick everywhere.
No one discovers truth; it is revealed.
Though nothing’s revealed without kicking first?
What but your mom’s love can ever allow
The backyard’s slow, methodic destruction?
She knows this is the only way you know
To operate. You will touch everything.

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