Poems
Duty
There are fewer true demands, non-negotiable responsibilities, made of you than you might suspect. Stay alive, really. A tautology: to live is to stay alive. That's true for a while. But when you usher a new life onto this threshing floor, the demands more than double. I am beholden to more than myself— the boulder I've been pushing is ten pounds heavier now. The cosmos has entrusted me with some other life to love, breathing being, a halo 'round her head that only her mother and I can see. We must monitor its shape and color and sheen, until she grows into it, when the golden circle fuses with her skull and becomes a conscience. I am charged with her— a contract signed in invisible blood. She whimpers in her sleep, and I dream of her dreams. What anxieties can this creature have, who knows not the burden we all carry? When do the cherubim become just some common angels, too big to haunt human shoulders? Will she one day learn to hate me, then love me again, as I have loved and hated and loved my father? I am full of questions, and she is full of answers, but they are hidden deep in her heart, and even when her mouth learns to form the words, the answers shall remain buried until I am too old to hear anyway.
Luke Shuffield is an emerging writer of poetry, fiction, and essays. Individual works have appeared in Lucky Jefferson, La Piccioletta Barca, Product Magazine, Hobart, and The Bookends Review. His debut poetry chapbook, "Ephemera," was published in print in 2025. He lives in Texas with the two loves of his life: his wife, Eileen, and daughter, Florence.