Warm Enough by Jan Fran

The question I ask myself the most is what temperature is my son
On the days we bake along the coast
I stare up at the sun
As it bears down on us
His cheeks pink, I think
What temperature is my son?
Perhaps he needs a hat

The question I ask myself the most is what temperature is my son
The rains start to pool while we walk to school
I say son I think we should run
As he dashes ahead – with his wet hair and his legs bare,
I think what temperature is my son?

The question I ask myself the most is what temperature is my son
In the morning I dress my son
Mourning another mother’s son
We cast our eyes to darkened skies
To a storm that’s only just begun
And I think what temperature is my son?

The question I ask myself the most is what temperature is my son
In the spring we flee to parks and pools
I watch him learn to float, then we head outside
Where vines of jasmine climb
And wrap round his mother’s throat
And I think what temperature is my son?

The question I ask myself the most is what temperature is my son
We stroll beneath the bright sunshine
I tell him it will all be fine
As long as he tows the line,
And speaks a language so benign
to never give a warning sign
I take his doughy hand in mine
A little boy with trees to climb
And I say son, are you warm enough?

Every shrink I’ve ever visited tells me to get a journal. Write it down, write it all down, they say. You’ll feel better. Turns out words are an excellent evacuation tool. They are the mechanism by which distress leaves the body.

Watching Israel’s genocide unfold in Gaza, I have felt tremendous helplessness, a loss of faith in humanity and a rising sense of dread. To watch the wholesale slaughter of human beings in real time for almost three years and then to see the obfuscation, the minimisation and the blind eyes turn is not something the nervous system can successfully ballast against. Not mine anyway.

Write it down, they say. You’ll feel better. But how to speak the unspeakable?

Warm Enough is a poem that tries to capture the feeling of living in two parallel universes. It speaks to my experience as a mother raising a little boy in what feels like a time of collapse. It’s about holding the big and small at the same time, seeing pure innocence up close every day while in the same breath seeing it taken in the most unconscionable of ways. How can it be that the skies are both dark and bright?

Most days I look around and see the tumult and uncertainty in the world, I see fast-approaching turbulence ahead and I feel the weight of what we are facing as a species and yet the only thing that matters in those moments is the temperature of my son.

• Australian Poetry Month runs throughout August and includes festivals, events, workshops and a commissioned poem of the day brought to you by Red Room Poetry. Find out more here