Issue Index

Full-Time Dads;

The Magazine for Caregiver Fathers

Issue 19, originally appeared in print - January 1996

A Conversation With Sean

By Edin Majelson

Sean was perched on the toilet
and I was sitting
at the edge of the bathtub
and we were carrying on the most delightful conversations
about the boundaries
of time
and the reason
for the stars
and the meaning
of our lives
in this vast cauldron of bubbling
cosmic hasenpfeffer
made with the leporine leftovers
from the feast of the Big Bang
not quite ready for
human consumption
or understanding.

And then
without a proper segue
our dialogue turned
to the weather
like two old men
chewing yarns between the flying gobs of tobacco
and more specifically
to the spitting snowflakes
that fell today
and how we spent the day
Decembering down
the icy blues
like a racing luge
on the shoes
of his Flexible Flyer.

And as he sat there with his
red pajamas
wrapped around his
three-year-old ankles
I read him
A Visit From Saint Nicholas
and he listened with his ears
devouring every rhyme
his elbows resting on his bare knees
his chin
cupped in his miniature hands
like last spring's featherless bird
in its nest high above
a quiet world outside.

And when I finished
and closed the book
I looked into his beautiful
blue eyes and thought,
How sad it is
that someday he'll grow up
and want to shit alone.

Copyright 1994 Edin Majelson