Tuesday, June 11, 2013 at 8:30AM

My son, my executioner,

I take you in my arms,

Quiet and small and just astir,

And whom my body warms.

Sweet death, small son, our instrument

Of immortality,

Your cries and hungers document

Our bodily decay.

We twenty-five and twenty-two,

Who seemed to live forever,

Observe enduring life in you

And start to die together.

From Brother Songs: A Male Anthology of Poetry. Ed: Jim Perlman.