Apr 2013
The child was reluctant, obstructive, rudely derogated the rules of night-time. In return, the mothers smile crusted over; her anticipating face raged with love, with tenderness, with necessity.
Hold back desperation: “Shall I read you a story?” Yes, a boring story, a story to bore your little eyes closed and your little head droopy and your little snores out.
All children learn to say no and this one was a champion already. Still gentle and formless it was not quite male, not quite female. It was androgynous, sexless, precocious with the possibilities of a gender unslated -- as if pigeon-holes could be sated at a later date. A choice depending on pointing out a celebrity from a picture in a magazine, and saying: ‘that one’.
“I don’t want to be in bed.”
This was said from bed, defiant, huddled and muddled within the pastry of the sheets and wriggling like a still-living filling. Four-and-twenty blackbirds, all singing.
Isn’t this a pretty dish thought mother.
“But bed is good,” she reasoned, “bed is a fine fine thing to be in.” She eyed it herself, covetously, the crispness of the linen holding the warm buttered biscuit smell of a child’s hair.
“Bed isn’t good. It’s lonely.”
Yes, lonely, sang the mother to herself, alone to be with myself only. Swaying with sleeplessness, mother’s voice burst with secrets.
“Bed is good. It is. It is where you were made.”
And you, child, are a good thing. Making you was good. Therefore beds are good.
Mother blinked dreamily, lies rushing unbidden to fill the gap between a child's world and the truth; the question came immediately.
“Have you ever seen someone making a *** out of clay?” she asked in response. Her arms raised in front of the child’s face. “Have you ever seen the clay sculpted, squeezed?” Then she lowered them. “And this was the oven. This is where you were baked.”
She wondered what kind of dreams these lies would bring, dreams of whispered fertility, Freudian dreams of plumbers removing bottoms and widdlers. Dreams of children baked out of clay and, rocked from the cradle; falling, smashing.
Hold back desperation: “Shall I read you a story?” Yes, a boring story, a story to bore your little eyes closed and your little head droopy and your little snores out.
All children learn to say no and this one was a champion already. Still gentle and formless it was not quite male, not quite female. It was androgynous, sexless, precocious with the possibilities of a gender unslated -- as if pigeon-holes could be sated at a later date. A choice depending on pointing out a celebrity from a picture in a magazine, and saying: ‘that one’.
“I don’t want to be in bed.”
This was said from bed, defiant, huddled and muddled within the pastry of the sheets and wriggling like a still-living filling. Four-and-twenty blackbirds, all singing.
Isn’t this a pretty dish thought mother.
“But bed is good,” she reasoned, “bed is a fine fine thing to be in.” She eyed it herself, covetously, the crispness of the linen holding the warm buttered biscuit smell of a child’s hair.
“Bed isn’t good. It’s lonely.”
Yes, lonely, sang the mother to herself, alone to be with myself only. Swaying with sleeplessness, mother’s voice burst with secrets.
“Bed is good. It is. It is where you were made.”
And you, child, are a good thing. Making you was good. Therefore beds are good.
Mother blinked dreamily, lies rushing unbidden to fill the gap between a child's world and the truth; the question came immediately.
“Have you ever seen someone making a *** out of clay?” she asked in response. Her arms raised in front of the child’s face. “Have you ever seen the clay sculpted, squeezed?” Then she lowered them. “And this was the oven. This is where you were baked.”
She wondered what kind of dreams these lies would bring, dreams of whispered fertility, Freudian dreams of plumbers removing bottoms and widdlers. Dreams of children baked out of clay and, rocked from the cradle; falling, smashing.
Prose poetry -- explained in my bio.
