hear my voice
it's telling stories
telling just the truth
about the innocent elias
lying next to you
innocent elias
Elias - Wolfsheim
the high-chair gives him away,
crumpled into each pine buttress
he gurgles, deep and satisfied
not making eye-contact with those
grey slate singles, just
bubbling away
as babies do
at first his mother doesn't notice
the length of my stare (is it rude to say,
all babies feel this way?)
so I've nothing to worry about
for
the next minute
and here at his table
this wine-red messiah in his
new minted skin starts -
sings parodies of
music hall hits from
eighty years before
how he knows them, through
the spittle and carrot pulp,
is a mystery to
the last minute of my
gaze - one I intend
to find out
tell me!
all your secrets little man -
appearances can be deceiving and I feel
that you survived Dier-el- Zur
perhaps and lived on
to transpose with fat fingers
my father's faith
so tell me
the depth of a womb, the quiet retreat of
a mother's chest
(one I've not known in years)
help me to see
the ageless mass of you
as new, a bright bursting
shock of hair
not, with passing
squeamish time the deep seat of your
ankle fat, the stubby wrist
those pale endless eyes
and all
I can know of you
was her
.
