Boyhood by Kim Whysall-Hammond

April 2023 | Utopia Science Fiction Magazine

Green and yellow parrots call noisily from slender branches

perched on top of spindly tree trunks that

have pushed themselves up out of low Martian gravity

we stand on a boardwalk perched high in sparse foliage

laugh as a flock of blue butterflies flap around us

their delicate wings shimmering in the lights

up here in the biodome is peace of a sort and

precious time with you, my Martian son

I look down at your hand clasping mine

those delicate fingers, enlarged knuckles, dry skin

your unusual height and build, tall, slender

your bones stretched as you grew here

a dark cloud of bats wing past our heads

our headsets translate their echoes for our hearing

and you shout with joy

Originally published in the April 2023 issue of Utopia Science Fiction Magazine.

About the Author:
Kim Whysall-Hammond is a Londoner who now lives deep in the English countryside. After an Astronomy degree, she worked in Climate Research and in Telecommunications. This poem is part of a sequence — Utopia published another in March 2022. Other poems have appeared in various Journals as well as in anthologies from Milk and Cake Press and Brigids Gate Press. Find more of her work at https://thecheesesellerswife.wordpress.com/