Doctors’ stethoscopes were flying saucers,
Rotating ’round his chest like orbiting planets.
Family and I shuttle into a waiting room
full as the moon on the night of his birth.
Claustrophobia made me feel like an astronaut.
I needed space.
April 11, 2002 …
A star cradles a glow too luminous for 9 months
of hibernation in maternal galaxy.
Water breaks Orion’s Belt 4 months
before it wraps around mother’s waist.
He takes his first breath.
Lungs the size of birthday balloons before breathing celebration into them.
Weeks later, Jayson arrives home.
His body the size of an average human hand,
holding 22 ounces of cosmic dust.
Light enough for gravity to question its own laws.
But, he grew gracefully into a heavy heart.
Heavy like hearing him say, “I love you” at the end of every phone conversation.
Heavy like watching him share every piece of his Milky Way with friends
Just so they can taste how heavy-hearted this galaxy should be … but it isn’t.
Jayson wears hearing aids to keep up with the speed of sound.
His speed of thought travels on low fumes.
The medicine launched inside of his incubator saved his life,
but sacrificed his brain and some friendships.
Kids treat Jayson like he’s from another planet.
But just because it takes some of us a little bit longer to develop into a star,
does not mean there is something wrong.
I think we keep forgetting.
Being born premature is just the universe’s way of saying,
“9 months is too long, we need you here now.”
Isaiah Mākar
Oak Park
Isaiahmakar.com