Learned It From You

He's four. He's furious.

Bricks all over the floor, bedtime, no.

And he does the thing I do —

the jaw, the pause, the flat voice,

and he shuts the bedroom door

exactly hard enough to say it.

I have never taught him that.

He has never seen me not do it.

You can lecture till your throat gives out.

They're not listening. They're filming —

He learned it from you. (learned it from you)

Not the speeches. Not the rules.

He learned the way you handle

a bad hour on a plain evening.

Learned it from you. (learned it from you)

Every habit gets a free ride

into somebody else's life.

And I got mine off a good man

at a sink in 'ninety-four,

a particular long sigh

I now own completely.

He'd be gutted if he knew.

He never sat me down and taught it.

It moved like a language

through a house where no one spoke.

So the fixing's not in telling.

The fixing's in the doing, watched —

He learned it from you. (learned it from you)

He'll be doing it at forty

in a house you'll never stand in,

to a person you'll never meet.

Learned it from you. (learned it from you)

That's the gift that's terrifying.

That's the one already given.

He learned it from you. (learned it from you)

So I knelt down on the toy bricks

and I said sorry to a four-year-old —

out loud, full sentence, no excuse.

And he looked at me like a man

watching something being installed.

Learned it from you. (learned it from you)

Let's make sure it's that. Let's make sure it's that.