The relatives are leaning over, staring expectantly.
They moisten their lips with their tongues. I can feel
them urging me on. I hold the baby in the air.
Heaps of broken bottles glitter in the sun.
A small band is playing old fashioned marches.
My mother is keeping time by stamping her foot.
My father is kissing a woman who keeps waving
to somebody else. There are palm trees.
The hills are spotted with orange flamboyants and tall
billowy clouds move beyond them. “Go on, Boy,”
I hear somebody say, “Go on.”
I keep wondering if it will rain.
The sky darkens. There is thunder.
“Break his legs,” says one of my aunts,
“Now give him a kiss.” I do what I’m told.
The trees bend in the bleak tropical wind.
The baby did not scream, but I remember that sigh
when I reached inside for his tiny lungs and shook them
out in the air for the flies. The relatives cheered.
It was about that time I gave up.
Now, when I answer the phone, his lips
are in the receiver; when I sleep, his hair is gathered
around a familiar face on the pillow; wherever I search
I find his feet. He is what is left of my life.
End of the poem
15 random poems
- No! by Thomas Hood
- Dance with ME by Neelam Sinha
- Some Last Questions by W. S. Merwin
- Николай Карамзин – К бедному поэту
- Epitaph On A Free But Tame Redbreast, A Favourite Of Miss Sally Hurdis by William Cowper
- At His Grave
- A London Plane-Tree poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Choral Union by Siegfried Sassoon
- Владимир Маяковский – Польша
- To Eva Descending The Stair by Sylvia Plath
- The Little Turtle by Vachel Lindsay
- Sonnet CXXIV by William Shakespeare
- Стефан Малларме – О, зеркало
- Noah by Siegfried Sassoon
- A Lover From Palestine by Mahmoud Darwish
Some external links:
Duckduckgo.com – the alternative in the US
Quant.com – a search engine from France, and also an alternative, at least for Europe
Yandex – the Russian search engine (it’s probably the best search engine for image searches).
