They can’t be who they were when their kids were small,
and their kids can’t forgive them for it now:
the hunch of their shoulders, a stiff hug’s sour smell,
bones thin as kindling under a gauze of snow.

Should they be sorry for not having died?
For dropping devices they don’t understand
when their kids with grown kids call them confounded
by a son’s loan, a daughter’s wedding band?

The script is fixed. They won’t explain themselves.
Like teens home late with hair shedding dried leaves,
they doubt the self could ever be explained.

See? They’re still gnashing stones to make a spark,
trying for a little light against the dark
in woods they knew by heart until they changed.