Fledgling

Then to the elements be free and fare thee well.
              W. Shakespeare

I never knew I was that stupid. We’d
flown across country, from Pittsburgh
to Portland, to move Ariel, our son, into
his dorm room at Lewis and Clark College.

Turns out, everything I did or said was
the dumbest thing he’d ever seen or heard.
By mid-afternoon, this practicing psychoanalyst
wanted to ring his son’s neck. I was seething.

My sweet wife, herself a psychiatrist, reminded me
of how anxious people often place in others their
most feared feelings. It was our son, she insisted,
who felt stupid and awkward as he started his new

life so far away from home. His only recourse was
to make me feel even less sure, less secure, than he.
She was, of course, correct. She could always sense his
inner life better than me. When he was little, she would

take one look at him and say, “he has to poop.” “No,”
I’d counter, “how could you possibly tell?” Two minutes
later he’d be squirming, jumping up and down—body
language for BATHROOM NOW! My sweet wife’s

analysis carried me through the day, while my simmering
choler helped me leave our only child to his new world.
I hadn’t seen how protective was my anger until, driving
up Maple Avenue to our house, no longer his home, Satchmo

sang on the radio, “What a wonderful world.” My eyes
overflowed—extinguished my angry conflagration.
When the smoke cleared, there throbbed my heart,
weary and worried, in my empty chest.