Relative
Relative
Original Text
Margaret Christakos, Welling (Sudbury, Ontario: Your Scrivener Press, 2010): 21-22.
1The mysterious boy without
2parents has a gash in his purple
3face & out of it unfolds an escalator
4of primitive idiom at which we grimace
6Is there equal opposite contraction
7within the boy's wingèd brain halves,
8does his blood backward-somersault
9toward a green lake & sand pail
10& a set of soft arms to catch him?
11My child is confined to his room until
12algebra adheres to the cartiliginous
13diffidence dumb teachers calculate
14(wrongly) will form rarely if a kid
15feels valued & encouraged, fed lasagna.
16Rebellion is a recipe of reciprocal
17terrorism that opera reveres as
18realism. Cleave away from love's
19suffocation if you know love, surely
20strike your mother's wrist from your temple.
21My son carries a coffee to my bedside
22& I thank him. Back from enemy
23camp my mask is skin, lightly wrinkled.
24We'll not embrace with the darling adagios
25he received as a toddler, but unwordedly, salute.
26Then I can't not hug him, & make reference
27to the street kid who sat in urine with his pinafored
28pitbull, dog collar spiking his own throat.
29My son draws back, bares teeth, streams a hiss:
30I get why he's out there. Think of the freedom, man.
Notes
5] involutant: necessarily involved (derivation from noun).. Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2011
Rhyme
Form
Special Copyright
Copyright © Margaret Christakos and used by permission of the poet. Authorization to republish this poem must be obtained from her in writing.