Poem/a/day: My Son’s Debut

My Son’s Debut

We fade out in the dimming house

lights, followed by the children,

fourth graders, my son among them,

taking stage, a choreographed entrance.

He seems taller in that luminescence.

Cramped into this miniature seat,

I try for eye contact, hoping

that he’ll seek me out in the darkness.

Missing a line, he searches the wings

instead, where an adult’s silhouette

crouches, nodding him reassurance.

He knows people that I don’t know,

most of his hours now being his own.

Holding up a Midwestern state

cut from sugar paper, he sings a lyric

about the Mississippi’s headwaters.

Just how the hell is it that he knows

so much about northern Minnesota?

In the last number, he pairs up

with a pony-tailed classmate,

and in his serious dancing eyes,

I think I see him seeing me.

I can’t help but wave like an idiot.

Soft joint of his elbow locked in hers,

they sing and spin, spin and sing,

dizzy and oblivious in their moment.

Shifting against the tingling

in my legs, I want only the applause

to come, the slow sway of velvet

curtains closing over this prophecy.

I want, when the lights come up,

for him to still need my witnessing,

still need to run to me with questions:

Did you see me, Dad? Did you see?

Jeff Vande Zande lives in Midland, MI with his wife and their two children and teaches English at Delta College. One of his poems was chosen by poet laureate Ted Kooser to appear in Kooser’s syndicated newspaper column, American Life in Poetry. He maintains a website at www.jeffvandezande.com.