I stitched the Halloween costume
my son chose, its blue cape heralding
an orange capital G, a bobble-nosed
mask. He didn’t like each fitting
but new blue jammies were fine.
All dressed, he revealed the child he was—
standing still, waiting, his look expectant,
began to melt away. Had I left in a pin,
was he changing his mind?
I finally got it—the costume would not
lift him off the ground, prove his power
by performing good deeds. Who was he then
but a child waking a moment to the world
he’d walk in forever, in this too his parents
had a dim capacity for wings.
Connemara Wadsworth’s chapbook, The Possibility of Scorpions, about the years her family lived in Iraq in the early 50’s, won the White Eagle Coffee Store Press 2009 Chapbook Contest. Her poems have most recently appeared in Prairie Schooner, Smoky Blue Literary & Arts Magazine, Valparaiso, The Kentucky Review, and The Mayo Review. “The Women” was nominated for publication in Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses by Bloodroot Magazine. Connemara and her husband live in Newton, Massachusetts.
