You cannot
call your child “best friend,”
words
that only honored others bear.
It’s not against the law exactly,
but it’s sheer impropriety.
Whether son as such or daughters as much,
It’s not against the law exactly,
but it’s sheer impropriety.
Whether son as such or daughters as much,
children
are disallowed, cannot share
so
matter-of-factly in that surpassing praise,
reserved
for strangers to one’s blood,
privileged
people, most loved, but removed.
The
phrase is maudlin fault, smuggled emotion
so
far around the language bend
it
is barred from polite or any society.
Even
if true,
it will not do.
it will not do.
Still
though all three of mine are grown,
have
their own connections farther down
the
chain of being, they remain
abiding
closest confidents to me.
Therefore,
thereupon, I offer no apology,
no
social correction in this unretracted overdue
revelation
(which will do, because it is true):
these
fond friends are best
not
in over-reaching, far-fetched but honest
publication,
which can and must be said
before
too late, without subtracting from unrelated
comrades
or unrivalled mate
with
their own deserved affirmation.
Hence,
whereupon and forthwith,
for
these special three,
lifelong
bonded company:
may
their own progeny—
good, better, or best—
good, better, or best—
be
equally, familiarly, similarly
blest.
