Seven years old

He bounds through the front door.

(Super heroes never walk. They run!  They leap!)

Pink safari pants and a new T-shirt: “I’m the GREATEST’.

No argument there.

 

Friday is Disco Night at the school auditorium

Blaring beat pounding sound

Freedom

As dusk swallows the familiar.

Exciting!

“Do you dance?”

“Nah. I just play tag.  But it’s fun.”

 

He goes into the bathroom leaves the door open

Calls out, “Have you got a comb?”

I fish up a big black comb (very masculine)

From an obsolete drawer and take it in.

He’s standing on the toilet seat

To reach his image in the glass above the basin –

In his socks.

The toilet seat is plastic, curved and slippery.

I clearly see him sliding headfirst into the sink

Teeth flying

Or crashing over the faucets into the tub

Ditto scenario plus a broken arm.

 

“What are you doing?”

He sweeps his fingers across his forehead

Swirling his hair in a wave up and out and back

Very  sophisticated.

 “I want to look like James Bond.”

He spots what I have in my hand.

“That’s perfect. Thanks”

I never crack a smile.

No rat-tailed baby-blue for James Bond!

 

“Look. That’s dangerous up there. I’m not joking.

Please get down and use the mirror in the hallway.”

He takes a flying jump and lands lightly on his toes

In really good form.

To be honest it is probably the safest dismount

So I bite back my tickling admonition.

I hand him the comb and he strides into the hall.

 

“Where’s the mirror?”

 

He has been to my house a gazillion times

And the mirror has been there every time

Covering  one third the space from floor to ceiling

Reflecting  nearly half the house.

I almost say, “You’re kidding, right?”

But I don’t.

“There.” I point directly behind him.

 “Oh! That’s great!”

He turns with his comb expertly angled

And stands stroking and swirling for the next ten minutes

Until he is satisfied with every follicle.

He does not ask for my opinion

But it does look suave.

 

Later

With smiles still flashing around my lips

I realize:

“A mirror is a no-thing until you want to see yourself.”

 

Cynthia Buell Thomas

March, 2014