My Son Wyatt Leaves Home

My Son Wyatt Leaves Home

I will have time to read more books.
I'll have time to write poems
about Galapagos tortoises.

Darwin and Lyell and Browning
will replace The Ramones and The Misfits
who room with you now.

I'll have room in the garage
to park my car. To store my overflow of books
which I plan to buy by the wheelbarrow

at garage sales. Last week I saw Yeats
sprawled on his back, Dickens
orphaned and sulking on a torn sofa.

I'll bring drop cloths and paint buckets
to your room. Japanese prints and paper lanterns
will replace the emptiness,

your bass drum and hi-hats now gone.
I'll have time to read the Greek tragedies,
to learn another language.

You'll be too busy to drop by much.
That's okay because I'll have the time
to go down my to-do list, as I sit in my new den

wondering how a new skin of paint
could possibly cover over

my old life.