For Alfie and Louie, both

I know I have to lose you
for you to become what you will be
but just for this moment

stop by the wayside and look, while
we still have looking in us, together
at this instant, despite its being

manufactured by me for my needs
and spare me this, for perhaps it is
a miracle anyway, just this stopping

and looking, at what it is
this tiny thing, which possibly
neither of us would otherwise have

noticed, and which is now
almost the apocalypse. let's
just look and hold hands

in the last moments of you still being
my little boy, our last breath
of love like this, looking together

at something inexpressible, falling
apart as we do it. Can we ever capture this
while the sun breaks our entire world?

.