Poem by Gerard Yelle

I didn't have to kill my inner child before
becoming a father, and so I didn't.
Maybe if I had my kids would be stronger.
But I didn't have to and so I didn't.
Maybe I couldn't. Deemphasize certain
needs and dependencies, yes, but
conquer them I couldn't. And now I see
that my father hadn't killed his inner
child either –No wonder I couldn't make
sense of his dead childhood. It was
never dead –only swept under the rug
at times. Mostly he had the courage
to be miraculous: Like the moon in his backlit
Gethsemane with its gold-jade nightlight
where they slept so close to flight
I could feel it breathe in them, the love
they longed for, becoming in their
coming together the parents we adored.