A Wigwam for a Goose's Bridle

He asks what makes me happy, 

and I don’t intend to sass him, 

but the autism leaps straight to 

existential questions:

what even is happiness?

Is it hearing my son’s belly laugh when I tickle him, 

or the innocence in their faces when they sleep,

or the way they tell me they love me?

Is it the way music sometimes penetrates to my core

and changes my soul? Or the way

my body feels when I dance?

Is it the warm peace that comes from glimmers?

Magenta sunsets, ripples on lakes,

scents of new books and old books and petals and coffee,

petrichor, the crunch of autumn leaves.

Is it stringing words together to paint

mental pictures of catharsis, or the scratch

of a quill across paper? Is it knowing

I’ve grown, made progress, even started healing?

Is it a sense of achievement, of feeling

I’ve contributed something, made some difference?

And I suddenly realise it is two days later, 

and I still have not replied, because I still do not

know the answer.