For Conner,
Happy Birthday!
-Dad



October 25th

The wrapped present, a train set, will make
the shape of a figure eight when the tracks
are snapped together.
And if I divide that double looped number by two, that is the age
you’ve stretched into, my son, on this day and year in October.
Let us whisk away on that new locomotive,
pretending together on the rails we’ve assembled,
tracing the sign of infinity,
another binary ring that means time without end.
I like that definition.
I know it isn’t true as I see these birthdays swiftly chug by—
passing stuffed bears, popup books, alphabet blocks—
but I can still use my imagination in the same way.
I just need to gather the tracks in my memory,
climb aboard with yesterday’s pictures,
and ride to that land of 2’s, 3’s, and 4’s.
A time without end...


(C) by Vincent Lowry