Talisman

A dusting of dark at the top lip
the first down of his manhood;
his smooth skin still a child’s.

Capture his liveness now as babies soon perish;
this clear-eyed boy thrives, his eyes wide
open on a white gold world.

Fringed in fine lashes and finery burnished;
tribute to Isis, pure from head to toe,
peeps from under her guardian wing.

I, his mother, dare to paint him for her –
his scalp unscarred, his mind still clean –
and offer my boy, whisper my prayer

to deliver him safe to posterity,
as an amulet for the people
in all his gleaming beauty.