The child signed the steamed pane
with his nose and fingerprints. He drew
a heart’s shape, the initials
of a beautiful stranger, and his own,
pierced by an arrow that was clear and cold.
The power of his waiting changed
to light: the lights came on
inside and out, it was so strong,
and then the smell of women, food,
and househeld pee was changed. Cloth
came in with short whiskers, soaked
in beer, tobacco-smoke and air-
smells from the business of outside.
Strength moved through the rooms
laughing too loud and hard
for the long bead curtains of rules
around explosive plates and cracking chairs.
First as a marsupial of pockets, then
as a freehold bird swung in the air,
his knowledge of the world of god
expanded in a space too small for joy.
Variation of Themes by Roethke & Eliot
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