A CHILD IN BROOKLYN
She stood on the dictionary
to reach the mirror
and whispered to that white cloud
look: I’m me.
In another room
her father licked his finger
to leaf through a divorce decree
with nineteen codicils:
as you were before:
independent lives:
child remains happy:
time is divided in two
but child stays in one body:
independent lives, happiness:
why didn’t we think of that
before it became law?
In another room
her mother in a large white hat
was packing a valise,
thumbing through postcards,
throwing out an ocean liner,
keeping a waterfall
with an arrow and the words
wish you were still here.
The huge books had been sorted.
The ones with sad endings would be kept
because the settings were so beautiful:
Ischia, Bari, the vineyards of Zion.
Never before had the city been so vast
or the war so remote
or the bombing so precise.
It seemed it had already happened
and been analyzed by computers
but no, it was just human life,
if you thought up you rose
on tiptoe and down you huddled
on the buckling lino.
If you thought sparrow
a small shadow darted by
self-important behind the frosted glass
but if you thought
here I start it was over.
So the child drew the letter I
in the heart of the cloud
and there she saw a fiery counsellor
who shines now she and we are gone.