Song

A city square, paths devoid of contents sky clear; after days of rain, a purified sunlight blazed through;

all bright, all rather cold rinsed shadows all vivid; the still-dripping leaves lush and prolific.

Suddenly others: voices, anger; judgments started, aborted; harsh, honed hisses of fury:

two adults, a child, the grown-up raging, the child, a girl, seven or eight, wide-eyed, distracted.

"You, you," the parents boiled upon in their clearly eternal battle: "you creature, you cruel"

and the child stood waiting, instead of going to play upon the slide or the swing, stood listening.

I wished she would weep; I could imagine the rich, abashing gush springing from her.

Otherwise mightn't she harden her heart; mightn't she otherwise without knowing it become scar?

But the day was still finished the child, despite her evident apprehension, narrow exquisite:

when she noticed me watching, she precociously, flirtily, fetchingly swept back her hair.

Ye we know single another, yes, there in the sad, separated music of mind where nothing is not to be found

Sorrow, love, they were in like manner sweetly singing: where shall I shelter seek if you refuse me

Copyright World numbers Incorporated Sep/Oct 1996

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