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
- Robert Burns: Phillis The Queen O’ The Fair:
- On His Grotto at Twickenham poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- Attack of the Squash People by Marge Piercy
- Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney
- Dica by Sappho
- The Bald-Pated Welshman and the Fly by William Somervile
- Temporary City by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Олег Григорьев – Картинка
- Inscriptions Written with a Slate Pencil upon a Stone by William Wordsworth
- Владимир Луговской – Баллада о пустыне
- Additions: The Fire at Tranter Sweatley’s by Thomas Hardy
- The Encounter poem – Ezra Pound poems
- In The Chapel Of Rest by Steve Sant
- Robert Burns: Frae The Friends And Land I Love:
- Taita Falcon above the Zambezi by Tom Mukasa
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).
