Hey Hey It's Okay

My son playing

On the sun soaked patio

Over by the swimming pool singing

Hey hey it's okay

A line from a song he heard

On the stereo when we were driving in the car

On the way to sign the papers to get

His grandfather released from the hospital

Now at the age where he repeats everything

Usually words you don't want him to say

The smell of orange floats in the dry air

Coming from the neighbor's orange tree

That the bus crashed into and knocked over

No one was hurt but oranges were smashed

Looking through the old records left out

I pick A Love Supreme and turn it up

Pour a glass of wine and light a cigarette

After a day like today why not?

Sit down at the patio table

Watch him play with his fire truck and cars

Wonder if he was really able to hear music like this

When I was pregnant and he was in my belly

Did he hear that jazz concert we attended

Downtown at the museum?

Or his father's experimental noise rock tracks

And that John Cage movie at the Max?

Is it possible to be deemed an unfit mother

Based on the taste of the music played in utero?

The wind picks up and blows a leaf into the pool

I get up and look for the pole and net