I've been teaching them how
To hide their hands behind their backs.
Sticking out your fists
To let the world read the fortune
From the lines of your palms
Is simply too unseemly.
There are plans they might hide,
Even from me.
In a few years, my word won't sway them.

Those wooden train tracks curve away
From where I stand, towering
Over all the animals—
Rubber and stuffed, with fake eyes and mouths
That they are still wild enough to see as real.
Someday they will learn to play at being that plastic
And “fine,” and responsible.

There will be more space between us than I might like.
But to span that gap with any bridge
Would only be unwanted,
And though satiating the curiosities I will someday gain
Will only stretch the distance
Into miles.

And I will wonder,
Who they have become,
What they like,
And who they love.
If their world shines as brightly, at those wonderful times,
And alternatively, shatters, as mine occasionally did and does.

One will hide it and cry
Because no one could crush that fragility.
The other will bolster on,
Against all currents out of a drive
That burns in spite of himself.
They won't know how much I'll worry.
And I will still urge them to conceal
The tells in the twitches of their veins,
Whether holding a royal flush
Or twos and sevens.

We will be rocks together,
Having solidarity in our solitude,
In this way closer than anyone could understand.
That I love them both enough to someday give them
No more advice.

I will not tell them what to do,
As soon as they are old enough
To choose their own pitfalls.
We will laugh together
And when they are ready to share
Those scrapes and snakebites,
Only then will I see their tears.
I won't ask to see what they don't put on display.
But I will still stand within earshot.
So when they need it, I will hear their screams.

But they will stray,
Because they are so-sagely still hiding their hands—
I gave up my right to hold them to offer them that gem of wisdom.

And someday they will realize
They, too, are looking down at Brio tracks
And all those worn-out silicone creatures
That will then be thousands of feet below.
And they will see all the things
I didn't point out.
All the stupid things I was warm enough to let them believe.