Allegiance, Lothlorien Poetry Journal

Originally published by Lothlorien Poetry Journal, August 2021
Pea Flower Tomioka

Allegiance

My first allegiance is to our son
Born of the passion that I cast these nets to reclaim
Inkblots on manufactured pages
As though I’m not capitalizing on the depths of our passion.

My first allegiance is to our son
Trying to prepare him for a world I still don’t know how to survive
Trying to secure him his own future, as though I was not robbed of my own at such a young age
To be the parent I needed when I was his age
So I trust my husband to steer the boat while I go below decks and play just one more game of Go Fish, that little boys bright eyes shining like his father’s, reflecting my own blue oceans back up at me.

And we coast for a little longer

He doesn’t know how the world burns.
But to prepare him robs him of this time when his innocence can wander free, safe from cruelty and heartbreak. I don’t want his fingers singed. Not yet.

“I’ll tell him when he’s older”, is the greatest lie a parent can tell themselves
In the barest hours of the morning
When we lay restless as the dawn barely stirs in the sky. I see the palm fronds etched in ink, bleeding into a sky that softens to threaten brilliance sooner than I hoped
And I know today could be the day I stop lying to myself, but no. No, Go Fish is too young. Still too young.

And I roll to embrace my Blue Jay, pulling him sleepy inside me, wiping clean the lies we tell ourselves with the slow pace to which those lies are born.

Tomioka, Pea Flower. “Allegiance.” One Prose Poem by Pea Flower Tomioka, August 2021.
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