Two years old, he totters towards his mutti's skirts
She turns away, for the decanter, and locks him in his room
Oh! He wails, pounding his little fists against the floor,
But she finds him asleep on the rug, clutching an old poppet to his breast
She lifts him to his crib and kisses his sodden cheek, checking her abuse at the door
Her smile is smug, folded away into her adulteration of love.

Five years old and he asks after his sire,
Tracing the beading of her mourning dress, as she kneels with him
As if he were a snake and she was stricken,
she drops him squat on the cold floorboards. Pulls herself within,
Then reaches to him,
Whispering condemnation and condolence
He backs away, burning his hand on the fire grate, the love in his eyes as dim.

When he is seven, the boy takes up a twisted love for architecture, swears he'll become a sailor, far from home
Her eyes are a cooling, somber grey-blue, they alight then smolder with a hiss
The boy's eyes are green, flush with life and innocence
They're his .