Emily Blewitt

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Mando

Wherever you go, he follows, 
cowboy shuffle proud as his pot-belly.

It’s take-your-kid-to-work-day
every day on this hospitable planet. 
Your office chair’s a cockpit, 
or a centrifuge to dizzy; 
your wireless mouse a grenade. 

Even your toothbrush
in his mouth. Spit it out, 
please, you say. Don’t touch. 
He’s always hungry 
so you keep raisins in your pockets. 

How you both enjoy 
dancing to Viking Skull 
in the afternoons. 
Weapons are a game 
Pewpewpew pewpew!
Anyone else want to launch an X-Wing? 

You head for a bath 
and the purity of water. 
When he reaches out 
you lift him, dripping.
Let’s bring you in warm. 
He finds your bellybutton 
then looks for his own.

It takes magic to gift him 
peaceful unconsciousness. 
In the sling, his quiet breath
clouds your shining Beskar,
lanugo at the tips of his ears
long gone.

Those aeon nights 
when nothing works 
you pace the wreck 
of our kitchen 
and point
out the stars.  

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EMILY BLEWITT is the author of This Is Not A Rescue (Seren Books, 2017) and the poetry submissions editor for New Welsh Reader. She has published in The Rialto, Poetry Wales, Ambit, The North, and The Forward Book of Poetry.