The Mailer Review/Volume 13, 2019/The Child: Difference between revisions
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barber pole I stood in front of | barber pole I stood in front of | ||
as a boy, the new housing project, | as a boy, the new housing project, | ||
chain-lined walks, blacktop sweat,</poem></div> | chain-lined walks, blacktop sweat, | ||
poverty just a spelling word.</poem></div> | |||
<div class="center" style="width: auto; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"> <poem>poverty just a spelling word.</poem></div> | <div class="center" style="width: auto; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"> <poem>poverty just a spelling word.</poem></div> | ||
Revision as of 20:49, 27 February 2021
| « | The Mailer Review • Volume 13 Number 1 • 2019 | » |
For years I’ve tried to bury
the child in me: that last proud
barber pole I stood in front of
as a boy, the new housing project,
chain-lined walks, blacktop sweat,
poverty just a spelling word.
poverty just a spelling word.
To rate responsibility, I’ve tried
to rid myself of selfish
evasion. It’s just as well
that I move to Nepal!
Someone believes, someone bleeds.
A girl bolts screaming from bed,
her hands pathetic wild birds,
a wooden man plods from
the house of his single mind.
At such times, when the cover
is torn off catalog comforts
and nothing grown seems full,
the child sliding head-first
into home, center of a good idea,
dustily rises, clear on the score,
and the words that passed for life
go in one ear and out the other,
a naughty habit never broken.
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