Todd Boss: "This Morning in a Morning Voice"

  to beat the froggiest
of morning voices,
  my son gets out of bed
and takes a lumpish song
  along—a little lyric
learned in kindergarten,
  something about a
boat. He’s found it in
  the bog of his throat
before his feet have hit
  the ground, follows
its wonky melody down
  the hall and into the loo
as if it were the most
  natural thing for a little
boy to do, and lets it
  loose awhile in there
to a tinkling sound while
  I lie still in bed, alive
like I’ve never been, in
  love again with life,
afraid they’ll find me
  drowned here, drowned
in more than my fair
  share of joy.

"This Morning in a Morning Voice" by Todd Boss, from Pitch: Poems. © W. W. Norton & Company, 2012.

Image: "Big Shadow, Little Boy," a print by Dick Sargent, 1960 (originally color).